The Monster Who Ate Darkness

Best-selling Taiwanese illustrator Jimmy Liao teams up with renowned British author Joyce Dunbar to present a fantastical, heartwarming tale.

Why can’t Jo-Jo go to sleep? He doesn''t like the darkness under the bed — a monster might be hiding there. And one is! It's a tiny speck of a monster with a huge appetite for darkness, gobbling it up under the bed, in every nook and cranny, and in the wide world outside, growing bigger with every bite. Soon there is no darkness left anywhere, from the earth to the stars. All the world is light, but the monster still has an empty feeling inside. Only a sleepless boy will help him be fulfilled at last.

The New York Times - Leonard S. Marcus

…preschoolers have not lacked for picture books to help them face down their fears. The trick for authors has been to find new wrinkles to explore in the well-worn material. In The Monster Who Ate Darkness, Joyce Dunbar does just that by recasting the hidden monster of her story as a kind of childlike magical helper…The story unfolds like a dream in which the monster's appetite is shown to be without bounds…Jimmy Liao, a Taiwanese illustrator, charts the course of this journey in crisp, bright, digitally enhanced pen-and-watercolor graphics.

Joyce Dunbar is the author of many books for children, including TELL ME SOMETHING HAPPY BEFORE I SLEEP, a bestseller, and SHOE BABY, illustrated by her daughter, Polly Dunbar. Joyce Dunbar lives in England.

Jimmy Liao is an award-winning Taiwanese illustrator who has generated a devoted following in his home country for his wonderfully original drawings. He has written and illustrated some twenty-seven books which have sold more than five million copies.