Judy Sierra

The Story Behind the Book

I've always enjoyed parody. As a child, I couldn't wait for the next MAD Magazine to appear at the corner store. In an earlier book, The House that Drac Built, I wrote a monster parody of an old nursery rhyme, and afterwards others kept popping into my head, such as

There was an old zombie who lived in a shoe.
She had so many maggots, she didn't know what to do.
So she soaked them in soapsuds and painted them green.
She'll be giving them out next Halloween.

When I'd put together twenty or so, I sent them to my agent. She found them too juvenile (!) and refused to submit them. I did what any self-respecting writer would do. I got a different agent.

Monster Goose is really all about the illustrations. I have never met the illustrator, Jack E. Davis, but he is exuberantly gross and ghoulish (at least, his art is exuberantly gross and ghoulish). When they see Monster Goose, even the most well-behaved children grab the book and rush to find a private spot where they can savor the illustration of Cannibal Horner's "people pot pie," or the innards of Little Miss Mummy who "kept all her guts in a jar."

Jack E. Davis also captured my spirit on the cover. Monster Goose, c'est moi, wearing reading glasses, typing away on a laptop, a manic gleam in her eye.