The Ultimate Survival Guide to Bedtime Monsters, by Mitch Frost, is a book containing the lastest, and most scientifically proven, steps for keeping a children's bedroom monster proof. Any child that has a monster problem with their bedroom only needs to read and follow the specific instructions within this book. After reading this Survival Guide, children will no longer have monster fears relating to their bedtime routines.

While reading the Ultimate Survival Guide to Bedtime Monsters, I found myself smiling and chuckling along. This book was pleasantly cute! It puts a humorous spin on kids' fears of monsters in their bedroom. I know that young readers will appreciate the easy-to-apply steps to getting rid of any monsters they may feel are in their own bedrooms.

The pictures and layout of the book were also done very well. I loved the bright colors, and I loved how the book was featured within the story itself. The monster pictures were done in a humorous way that will aid in helping any young readers get over their bedtime fears.

I had high hopes for this book, as I love a good monster picture book. I felt like this one dropped the ball in several ways, though.

First of all, make up your mind if this is a "trick kids into doing what you want" book (it tells them things like cleaning their rooms and brushing their teeth drive away monsters) or a "monsters aren't scary" book (there are a couple of funny and pathetic ones, they supposedly like jokes, etc.) or a "here's a secret to keeping you safe from scary monsters" book (the book says it creates an anti-monster forcefield to protect kids and it tells them reasons not to be scared of particularly things). The author needs to pick a lane, as he contradicts himself all over the place going in all these directions.

The very first page had me flinching, as the illustration shows a monster hiding inside the bottom of a mattress in a laboratory where they're testing anti-monster techniques. It never even occurred to me as a child that a monster could not just be hiding under the bed, but could be inside the mattress with a creepy eye peering out. Good grief. That's terrifying, even when drawn cutely. And then when you tell kids that all they have to do to keep monsters at bay is clean their rooms because you never see monsters in a clean room, they've just shown you a monster hiding in a spotless lab inside your very mattress. Who on earth thought that was a good idea????

They do this again later, saying things like not to worry about dangling your ankles off the bed because monsters have weak arms. Oh please. First of all, the angle of the child's foot dangling once again inspires fear about something the kid may not have even thought to worry about. We see that poor little foot dangling the way it will look to a monster hiding under the bed, and it's not an encouraging image. Second of all, the entire book is filled with all different sizes and shapes of monsters who have perfectly good control of their arms and can grab your little foot. Again, are we trying to actually make them afraid of monsters?

Yeah, I'm sorry but this one just doesn't work for me. It's full of holes and is more likely to cause anxiety about monsters than cure it.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

This monster book is just okay. The pictures are passably cute (and not too scary) and the text is decent from a technical standpoint. But... it contradicts itself, discourages rereads, and generally just nullifies itself.

What do I mean? Well, basically, this is an instruction manual for keeping bedtime monsters at bay. Right off the bat, the audience is going to be limited because not all kids are worried about this. Anyway, the book gives steps on how to keep those pesky monsters from bothering you. It's a thinly veiled attempt to get kids to clean their rooms and brush their teeth. Which brings me to the first problem. Step 1 has kids tidying up their rooms because monsters hate messes (there's nowhere for them to hide). But then Step 5 has kids surrounding themselves with oodles of their toys because monsters hate big crowds. So are we trying to get kids to keep their rooms tidy or not?

A number of the steps are pretty pointless (and not really steps at all). Step 3 is, "Forget about dancing robot monsters. They don't exist." (Except in kids' minds where you've just planted the idea. Moving on...) Step 6 instructs readers to ignore the hairy monsters because they're vain and just want to play with their hair all night. Step 9 tells us not to worry about monsters shaped like doughnuts (they're more afraid of you than you are of them). Step 10 tells kids to take their socks off because they don't need them (monsters can't grab ankles because their arms are too weak... and so is this logic for going barefoot).

But then we get to the biggest head-scratcher of them all. As a bonus, the book apparently functions as a monster force-field that encompasses the entire house. All you have to do is read the book and close it and you're instantly protected from monsters! You don't have to bother cleaning your room or brushing your teeth. The book does all the hard work of monster repelling for you. (The last page tells us that these steps now work on closet monsters, too. I should hope so; closets are generally indoors, and would be inside the force-field.)

If a kid is really into monsters (i.e., loves them rather than fears them), this might be an okay book. But the lack of logic and the self-neutralizing nature of some of the steps is kind of confusing. I've read better books that deal with this topic.