Book Description
for How to Knit a Monster by Annemarie van Haeringen
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
An accomplished knitter, Greta the goat expands her output from socks to a herd of little goats. But when Mean Mrs. Sheep criticizes Greta’s technique, Greta loses her concentration and inadvertently knits a wolf, who chases the little goats away and eats Mrs. Sheep. Greta manages to hide in a storage closet, where she quickly knits a tiger. The tiger is a temporary solution: It gobbles the wolf, but then smells a “succulent goatie” it would like for its next course. Greta’s creative knitting delivers the tiger’s nemesis—a monster—which she cleverly keeps under control and reels back in by never casting the last stitches off her needles. “Riffle raffle riffle raffle whoosh”: Greta unravels the monster, and then the tiger, and finally the wolf. The satisfying denouement celebrates Greta’s quick thinking, while the ink, watercolor, and colored pencil illustrations capture the whimsy of her knitted creations. (Ages 3–6)
CCBC Choices 2019. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2019. Used with permission.