This book offers a series of standard father-to-child promises (e.g., "Because I'm your dad...I'll go to all your soccer games, even when they're far away"). The fact that the book's principals are monsters does nothing for the story's meaning, but it makes for some amusing illustrations (a giant-monster dad in a sea of humans cheers at a soccer game).

K-Gr 1 Zappa presents a daddy monster who tickles, plays games, plans fun-filled excursions, and offers spaghetti for breakfast and ice cream in the tub. He evinces a generally goofy persona that allows for plenty of mud and burping along with cuddles and care. Young children will probably giggle and warm up to the monster dad, who appears more silly than scary in Santat's exuberant illustrations. However, there isn't much story line beyond the list of pledges that the grown-up makes to his child, based, as he explains in the end, on the parenting he himself received. And while the family depicted seems recognizable, it is familiar in a stereotypical TV sitcom kind of way. Purchase if there is a need for additional tributes to dads. Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT