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The Monster Trap    by Dean Morrissey Amazon.com order for
Monster Trap
by Dean Morrissey
Order:  USA  Can
HarperCollins, 2004 (2004)
Hardcover
* * *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Paddy is staying over at 'Pop's Place' (with his grandfather) for the first time, while his parents are away. It's darker than he remembered, and it doesn't help that they listen to 'Monster Radio Theater' together after supper ... when Paddy goes to bed, he hears monsters.

But Pop has a solution - a trap containing 'Sure-fire, high-grade monster bait'. Though something has a look in the middle of the night, the trap's empty the next morning. Paddy is sure the monsters are 'just too smart for this trap' so they make another, bigger and smarter. When the trap's empty again the next morning, Pop gets serious. Together they build the trap so that 'the bafflesnatch is connected to the flubbernut, and the snogmuddle fits through the plim flaps.' Will that one work?

You'll just have to read the book to find out! The Monster Trap's illustrations are suitably spooky, in an old-time style, and the story reflects that special connection that skips a generation, and the ability that some adults have to enter children's imaginations and play with them there.

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