Books like "The a Monster at the End of This Book"?

June 30, 2008 3:28 PM

Can you recommend any children's books along the lines of The Monster at the End of This Book? I'm looking for funny books, for kids, where the characters know they're in books. (This is to entertain two goofy kids, ages five and two.)
posted by The corpse in the library to media & arts (11 comments total)

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Book
posted by Dave 9 at 3:42 PM on June 30, 2008

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales." Very meta.

Also have a look at their delightful tale, "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs."

I also like David Wiesner's "The Three Pigs."

*Goes off to raid son's bookshelf...*
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:49 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Open Me. I'm a dog. by Art Speigelman. Awesome book.
(I'd second The Stinky Cheese Man as well.)
posted by Gucky at 3:58 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

seconding David Wiesner's Three Little Pigs - brilliant piece of work
posted by jammy at 4:03 PM on June 30, 2008

My five-year-old loves An Undone Fairy Tale.
posted by Flannery Culp at 5:00 PM on June 30, 2008

Would You Like to Play Hide and Seek in this Book with Lovable, Furry Old Grover? (Please Say Yes!)
posted by Lucinda at 5:08 PM on June 30, 2008

You might like Read All About It, in which the characters aren't aware they're in a story, but characters from the books the teacher is reading visit the classroom. TVTropes lists both TMatEotB and The Stinky Cheese Man but no other picture books (The Neverending Story might be good when they're a little older). A couple of Scieszka's other books (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf, The Frog Prince Continued) may be close to what you're looking for--the Wolf, at least, is supposed to be writing his story to set the story straight because of the horrid libel in all those other books about him and those rotten pigs, and if you find they like silly fairy tale subversions, then Waking Beauty and Falling for Rapunzel are both a lot of fun, though they still lack the fourth-wall-breakage.
posted by Cricket at 8:06 PM on June 30, 2008

nthingr Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fractured Fairytales.

Bought it when my son was seven or eight; when he moved out this summer at age 18 he handed it over and let me keep it. Good boy.
posted by mcbeth at 9:22 PM on June 30, 2008

Allan Ahlberg's The Jolly Postman is full of letters from storybook characters that you can take out of the book and read.
posted by coevals at 5:29 AM on July 1, 2008

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus is pretty great. Immediately reminded me of the Grover-Monster book.
posted by BundleOfHers at 10:41 AM on July 1, 2008

Definitely Do Not Open this Book -- very cute, and very similar. Also seconding the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.
posted by cider at 1:53 PM on July 2, 2008