Fair Monaco [Hardcover]

Brock Cole (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 6 and up

Maggie and Katie and Little Nora visit their old granny in the city. Everything is rundown, especially Granny, and there's nothing to do, so they go to bed early. Scary dreams, provoked by strange noises and spooky happenings -- not to mention the extra feet in the bed! -- inspire the children to choose to dream of good things. Even Granny wakes up refreshed and ready to tell the tale of long ago, when she danced with the prince in fair Monaco.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 4 - Cole offers a subtle and sweet affirmation of the power of familial love. When Momma is sick and Poppa is away, Maggie, Katie, and Nora are sent to stay with Granny. Deft watercolors reveal the homespun details within the brownstone on a bustling urban street as the disheveled senior does her best to care for her charges. The girls try to amuse themselves, but Granny denies each of their requests with a rationale couched in worry. The sisters finally ask her to tell them of the "long time ago, when you danced with the Prince in fair Monaco." Alas, the distracted woman's mind is filled with concerns, and dinner and bed are all that she can manage. A spread shows the evening cityscape washed in blues and grays, and observant readers may notice two signs that say "Fair" and "Club Monaco." After settling in for the night, the sisters notice a fourth pair of feet in their bed ("Witch's feet!"). A clever spread connects their bedroom to their grandmother's, as the girls dive under the covers and emerge in "granny-witch's" bed and enter her dreams. As the bed floats out of the window and through the sky, they encounter and override each one of the old woman's worries, from burglars to bad boys to bills. When she awakens, a smiling Granny recalls her strange dreams and then plans a special breakfast and a day filled with dancing. With its strong, cleverly presented message about overcoming fears, this book will have wide appeal. - Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

K-Gr. 3. Cole, who so often pushes boundaries, especially in his novels, such as The Goats (1988) and The Facts Speak for Themselves (1997), does the same for a younger audience in this picture book that plays with the nature of reality and the effect of perception and dreams on our surroundings. "When Momma was sick and Poppa away, then Maggie and Katie and little Nora went to stay with Granny in the old house on Queen Street." Granny's neighborhood is one of urban blight, and when Nora and her two teenage sisters ask if they can take a walk, Granny's answer is that the area is too dangerous. Rather than delight the children with a story about the time she danced with the prince in Monaco, she goes to bed with a head full of worries and fears about the neighborhood. A transitional spread shows the girls trying to see if there are really witch's feet under their clammy bedcovers; they then find themselves transported into Granny's bed, which floats out the window, past the bad boys and the burglars. Maggie insists they create their own dreams to make the witchy ones go away. They dream of a fair wind and doughnuts, and sure enough, by morning, things are brighter. The neighborhood, once sinister, is now bustling. As in a dream, the underlying meanings here must be teased out, and perhaps the best part of this reading experience will be adults and children discussing what the story means. Pushing their ideas along will be Cole's always interesting artwork. Here, the crowded city becomes almost a character--heavy, dirty, and dangerous at first, but then a positive, pulsing life force as it is transformed through desire. Some readers will just shrug their shoulders, but perhaps they're not dreamers. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 6 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Front Street imprint of Boyds Mills Press; First Edition edition (October 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932425071
• ISBN-13: 978-1932425079
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 9.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,253,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 31/2* Living in the Ci-TAY, February 15, 2005

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fair Monaco (Hardcover)

While their parents are indisposed, teens Maggie and Kate and their little pig-tailed sister stay with "Granny," who lives on a blighted street across from the Club Monaco. Graffiti covers her apartment building wall and barbed wire tops it, a broken auto rusts away on the opposing sidewalk, and trash--some in bags, some scattered by the wind--lays everywhere. Even at night, the grey-brown cityscape tones are a convincing argument for urban renewal. Granny's apartment is a little more personal, but shares in the general dilapidation. Moreover, Granny is too scared to let her visitors walk around on play on the fire escape, and has the neighborhood horror stories to prove it. For the kids, it's a veritable prison.

As the children try to sleep, author/illustrator Cole begins a very subtle shift towards a dream narrative. For one thing, the three grandchildren find a forth pair of feet (mysterious!) in their bed, and a figure who suddenly appears in a mirror grabs a robe-and disappears. Three pages later, any subtlety is gone: Disappearing under their covers,

"..up they came in the witch's bed
where the granny-witch was fast asleep.
At that very moment, the bed gave a lurch and
floated out the window into Queen Street."

With the scary city beneath them, Maggie and Katie and little Nora engage in some "lucid dreaming," willing their nightmare into a good dream. They dream of "white sails" and "great birds soaring" and "pancakes and syrup and doughnuts and tea in a garden of flowers near a house by the sea..."

Apparently, the scared and defensive Granny shares in this dream, because when she wakes up (with a smile!) she announces a breakfast of pancakes, syrup, doughnuts, and tea. The neighborhood looks different when they wake up: It appears cleaner and more appealing; the presence of city workers shows tax dollars finally at work. And Granny is freed up to show the kinds the dance she "learned long ago, when I danced with the Prince in fair Monaco."

It's difficult to know what to make of this book. Older, poor people need kids to release them from entrenched, imprisoning thoughts? Younger, scared people can dream themselves into a refreshed mood? Is that Sigmund Freud and a young Granny appearing on the page where Maggie says, "Don't be afraid?" Did psychotropics and/or a good night's sleep take the edge off? I really don't know--Cole offers no discernable point of view or lesson. While that admirably leaves the book's conclusion to the reader's interpretation, it doesn't really offer any clues about how to cope with the very real problems of feeling lonely, poor, and vulnerable. It's clear that Cole is an accomplished illustrator; his watercolor washes capture both atmosphere and detail, and he cleverly interweaves the dream sequence with the gritty reality. However, I think his resolution of get-away dreamscapes and abrupt transformations is simplistic and unconvincing. Perhaps the "message" is as simple as this: Getting a good night's sleep, coupled with the energy and imagination of teens and children is as good an antidote to living in poverty as you're going to get.