An appealing picture book, in which an artist is surrounded by 26 monsters and has to overcome his fears in order to paint. The "monsters" are not at all scary; in fact they are children at play in a park. The story is told in a structured poetical form, with 26 words in the first sentence, then 25, 24, 23 and so on until the last line is a single word. As the poetry lines get shorter, the whimsical watercolour illustrations by Dusan Petricic grow larger, and the monsters vanish away, hiding in the artist's new painting. Tim Wynne-Jones has won two Canadian Governor General's awards for children's books, and Dusan Petricic has illustrated other fine books including several by Margaret Atwood. Recommended for ages 4 to 7, especially interesting for early readers. ( )