What do you think?
Rate this book
Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon
Marie is fed-up. She has simply had enough of the frightful monsters pestering her at night. After a lot of thought, Marie comes up with a brilliant plan - to steal the moon and hang it in her room. But, while she might have solved her own problem, absolute chaos has now broken out elsewhere! What can she do? And will Marie ever find a way to keep everyone happy?
32 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
5 people are currently reading
585 people want to read
About the author
Marjane Satrapi
32 books6,566 followersMarjane Satrapi (Persian: مرجان ساتراپی) is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novellist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author. Apart from her native tongue Persian, she speaks English, Swedish, German, French and Italian.
Satrapi grew up in Tehran in a family which was involved with communist and socialist movements in Iran prior to the Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français there and witnessed, as a child, the growing suppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ruhollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran-Iraq War. She experienced an Iraqi air raid and Scud missile attacks on Tehran. According to Persepolis, one Scud hit the house next to hers, killing her friend and entire family.
Satrapi's family are of distant Iranian Azeri ancestry and are descendants of Nasser al-Din Shah, Shah of Persia from 1848 until 1896. Satrapi said that "But you have to know the kings of the Qajar dynasty, they had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don't know, 10-15,000 princes [and princesses]. There's nothing extremely special about that." She added that due to this detail, most Iranian families would be, in the words of Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian, "blue blooded."
In 1983, at the age of 14 Satrapi was sent to Vienna, Austria by her parents in order to flee the Iranian regime. There she attended the Lycée Français de Vienne. According to her autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis, she stayed in Vienna through her high school years, staying in friends' homes, but spent three months living on the streets. After an almost deadly bout of pneumonia, she returned to Iran. She studied Visual Communication, eventually obtaining a Master's Degree from Islamic Azad University in Tehran.
During this time, Satrapi went to numerous illegal parties hosted by her friends, where she met a man named Reza, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. She married him at the age of 21, but divorced roughly three years later. Satrapi then moved to Strasbourg, France.
Satrapi grew up in Tehran in a family which was involved with communist and socialist movements in Iran prior to the Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français there and witnessed, as a child, the growing suppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ruhollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran-Iraq War. She experienced an Iraqi air raid and Scud missile attacks on Tehran. According to Persepolis, one Scud hit the house next to hers, killing her friend and entire family.
Satrapi's family are of distant Iranian Azeri ancestry and are descendants of Nasser al-Din Shah, Shah of Persia from 1848 until 1896. Satrapi said that "But you have to know the kings of the Qajar dynasty, they had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don't know, 10-15,000 princes [and princesses]. There's nothing extremely special about that." She added that due to this detail, most Iranian families would be, in the words of Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian, "blue blooded."
In 1983, at the age of 14 Satrapi was sent to Vienna, Austria by her parents in order to flee the Iranian regime. There she attended the Lycée Français de Vienne. According to her autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis, she stayed in Vienna through her high school years, staying in friends' homes, but spent three months living on the streets. After an almost deadly bout of pneumonia, she returned to Iran. She studied Visual Communication, eventually obtaining a Master's Degree from Islamic Azad University in Tehran.
During this time, Satrapi went to numerous illegal parties hosted by her friends, where she met a man named Reza, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. She married him at the age of 21, but divorced roughly three years later. Satrapi then moved to Strasbourg, France.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
December 6, 2015
Probably not terribly helpful as an instantiation of the helping-kids-deal-with-fears genre of picture books; more like a piece of folklore about how cats came to live with humans. I liked it, but I wasn't a kid who was afraid of the dark or monsters.
June 17, 2009
I read this book because of this review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/.... , now one of my favorite reviews on Goodreads. (I suggest that you go and read that review. I think I liked this book as much as I did because of the review as much as because of the book itself.)
This is a cute book and it might be helpful for children who are afraid of monsters at night, but only if their household has at least one cat companion, or if their parents are amenable to keeping a light on at night. This book is by the author of the memoir Persepolis but I’d have never known it by reading/viewing the book; they’re so different.
This is a cute book and it might be helpful for children who are afraid of monsters at night, but only if their household has at least one cat companion, or if their parents are amenable to keeping a light on at night. This book is by the author of the memoir Persepolis but I’d have never known it by reading/viewing the book; they’re so different.
February 27, 2020
From the creator of
Persepolis
- the fabulous graphic memoir of growing up in revolutionary Iran - comes this lovely picture book about a young girl whose attempt to frighten away nighttime monsters leads to some unexpected consequences. When Marie cuts the moon out of the sky, in order to keep it in her room, the resultant darkness emboldens the rats, and causes immense chaos for the cats. Luckily, the Cat King knows how everyone's needs can be met...
I enjoyed Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon, with its brightly-colored illustrations, and its lovely pro-cat narrative, and think that it will provide some bedtime comfort to young children who are afraid of monsters. I can't say that it is a particularly brilliant book, but I am an admirer of Satrapi's, and thought it a worthy first foray into this genre.
I enjoyed Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon, with its brightly-colored illustrations, and its lovely pro-cat narrative, and think that it will provide some bedtime comfort to young children who are afraid of monsters. I can't say that it is a particularly brilliant book, but I am an admirer of Satrapi's, and thought it a worthy first foray into this genre.
August 15, 2012
I'm a fan of Marjane Satrapi, but this children's book just didn't do it for me. There are monsters that scare Marie at night, so she cuts out the moon and puts it in a birdcage in her room to keep the monsters away. It works, but the cats can't see at night without the moon, which means that the rats get out of control. The cat king finally negotiates with Marie to solve their mutual problems. It sounds like a cute story, but it's too simply told and the pictures are really big and colorful. Maybe this would be more fun to read with a young child.
I wonder if it's more charming in its original French...
I wonder if it's more charming in its original French...
April 10, 2016
I ordered this book through the public library but didn't realize it was a children's book. I had ordered because I wanted to read more books by this author. this was a cute book and great if you have kids and a cat. they will always want the cat near by :-)
August 18, 2014
Tiedätkö miksi kissat nukkuvat pikku tyttöjen jalkopäässä?
November 28, 2014
French-Iranian Marjane Satrapi has been hailed as one of the foremost comics artists of our time, and rightfully so I might add. This despite, or maybe because of the fact that she's only done a handful of graphic novels. A comparison to American Art Spiegelman is not out of place, both from the fact that Satrapi is so obviously inspired by Spiegelman's masterpiece Maus, and that he also has done few but very well received comics.
Besides the graphic novels that she's done, Satrapi has also made a few children's books, books that are less well know, though. I normally only review comics, but with children's books made by comics artists I make an exception, as I find it fascinating to see how they handle a whole other format of visual storytelling.
This book has a simple, straightforward story, with a flair of old fairy tales. A young girl is harassed by monsters during the nights and as a solution takes down the moon and hangs it in her room. This solves the problem, but has the effect that all cats loose their bearing in the night and the rats has a field day. The solution is that the King of cats offers the girl one of his knights, i.e. a cat to sleep by the girls bed to keep the moster away, and in return the girl sets the moon back in the sky.
The story is well told with neither too much or too little words per page and a good narrative flow. As an adult you need to suspend the knowledge that cats has just as good nigh vision as rats, but other than that it works fine.
The visuals are very distinct and it would probably surprise someone who has only read Satrapi's Persepolis to realise that she ha also drawn this. The thick black lines are there, but they are more polished than in the comics by Satrapi, and most importantly, these images have been coloured. The latter was done in a computer, with shadings, but tastefully so. It's a bit like when you start watching Satrapi's film version of Persepolis, which is great by the way, and at first feel a bit startled that things that you have read several times in black and white suddenly have color...
Anyway, if I would complain on anything it's that the text has been set in an ugly, harsh bold sans serif, which doesn't resonate with the drawings at all. I haven't seen the French original, so I don't know if this is the Swedish publisher being insensitive, or if they only followed suit.
Al-in-all, I liked the book, though not excessively so. I'll now subject it to the ultimate test and read ut to my baby girl, who's in the right age group, and see how she likes it...
Besides the graphic novels that she's done, Satrapi has also made a few children's books, books that are less well know, though. I normally only review comics, but with children's books made by comics artists I make an exception, as I find it fascinating to see how they handle a whole other format of visual storytelling.
This book has a simple, straightforward story, with a flair of old fairy tales. A young girl is harassed by monsters during the nights and as a solution takes down the moon and hangs it in her room. This solves the problem, but has the effect that all cats loose their bearing in the night and the rats has a field day. The solution is that the King of cats offers the girl one of his knights, i.e. a cat to sleep by the girls bed to keep the moster away, and in return the girl sets the moon back in the sky.
The story is well told with neither too much or too little words per page and a good narrative flow. As an adult you need to suspend the knowledge that cats has just as good nigh vision as rats, but other than that it works fine.
The visuals are very distinct and it would probably surprise someone who has only read Satrapi's Persepolis to realise that she ha also drawn this. The thick black lines are there, but they are more polished than in the comics by Satrapi, and most importantly, these images have been coloured. The latter was done in a computer, with shadings, but tastefully so. It's a bit like when you start watching Satrapi's film version of Persepolis, which is great by the way, and at first feel a bit startled that things that you have read several times in black and white suddenly have color...
Anyway, if I would complain on anything it's that the text has been set in an ugly, harsh bold sans serif, which doesn't resonate with the drawings at all. I haven't seen the French original, so I don't know if this is the Swedish publisher being insensitive, or if they only followed suit.
Al-in-all, I liked the book, though not excessively so. I'll now subject it to the ultimate test and read ut to my baby girl, who's in the right age group, and see how she likes it...
August 30, 2012
A Emma le gusta muchísimo.
Emma no tiene miedo de los monstruos pero tiene un gato, ahora sabemos que no tiene miedo de los monstruos porque tiene un gato que la cuida : )
Emma no tiene miedo de los monstruos pero tiene un gato, ahora sabemos que no tiene miedo de los monstruos porque tiene un gato que la cuida : )
October 7, 2007
Satrapi of Persepolis fame brings young readers a gem of a story. The main character Marie has a wonderful life until night falls and the monsters come out. One of them pinches her on the nose, one of them pulls her hair and the third one makes horrible faces all night. Marie’s a smart girl so when she realizes that the monsters are afraid of the moon she cuts it out of the sky and puts it in a birdcage over her bed at night to protect her. This dynamic story is full of bright, narrative illustrations that will have readers and pre-readers alike relating easily to the story while children of all ages will relate to Marie’s plight.
March 5, 2017
The storyline goes that a little girl, Marie, likes doing the nice things of daytime but that it all chanes at nightfall; the monsters come out then!
So mate they don't like the light. So she brings a piece of the moon into her room.
And it Worked!!! But then, because the moon was gone, the cats…. and then the rats… and then the cats talk too…; and I'm not saying any more.
For the kids, the art is stylized, "normal" for the good parts; scary for the scary parts. Well designed.
Good for all ages but best for ages 3-12.
So mate they don't like the light. So she brings a piece of the moon into her room.
And it Worked!!! But then, because the moon was gone, the cats…. and then the rats… and then the cats talk too…; and I'm not saying any more.
For the kids, the art is stylized, "normal" for the good parts; scary for the scary parts. Well designed.
Good for all ages but best for ages 3-12.
July 1, 2009
This was somewhat disappointing! I expected more from Marjane Satrapi, who is an amazing writer and artist. This children's book had a lot of potential but it fell short. The story seemed rushed and underdeveloped. I'm sure kids will enjoy it anyway, especially at bedtime, but I just expected a lot more.
I do, however, give her lots of credit for making cats such an essential part of the story (and its resolution)!
I do, however, give her lots of credit for making cats such an essential part of the story (and its resolution)!
February 2, 2016
Saya penggemar Marjane Satrapi dan mulai mengikuti seluruh karyanya sejak membaca Persepolis yang merupakan sebuah novel grafis.
Buku ini ditujukan untuk anak-anak sehingga gambarnya lebih sederhana dan berwarna. Ceritanya unik, saya suka. Saya membacakannya untuk anak saya yang berusia 1,5 tahun dan dia juga senang dibacakan buku ini.
Saya tahu potensi Marjane Satrapi, buku ini mungkin hanya permulaan karyanya untuk anak-anak. Buku anak selanjutnya pasti akan lebih bagus dan menarik :)
Buku ini ditujukan untuk anak-anak sehingga gambarnya lebih sederhana dan berwarna. Ceritanya unik, saya suka. Saya membacakannya untuk anak saya yang berusia 1,5 tahun dan dia juga senang dibacakan buku ini.
Saya tahu potensi Marjane Satrapi, buku ini mungkin hanya permulaan karyanya untuk anak-anak. Buku anak selanjutnya pasti akan lebih bagus dan menarik :)
September 6, 2011
After reading Persopolis, I was curious about what sort of children's book Satrapi would write. Marie is a tough, independent little girl - she is afraid of monsters but takes her fear in her own hands and solves her problem. And then has to solve the problems she has created by solving hers. No parents were required in the solving of any problems.
September 14, 2011
I'm trying to move my almost-5 year old to her own room (yes, she co-sleeps. Yes, I love it. Yes, I regret it. But sometimes sleep is more important than being right). As she is using the whole "monsters in my room" to avoid sleeping alone, I thought that monster books might be good. This one is cute, well-written and beautifully illustrated.
April 29, 2012
Marie is afraid of the dark because three monsters come out at night and torment her. She learns that the monsters are afraid of the moon, so she bring a piece of the moon into her room to keep them away. Her plan works, but causes problems because there is no bright moon to light up the sky. What will she do? If she puts back the moon, the scary monsters might come back!
April 6, 2016
I adored this book. It may just be because the combination of little kids and cats are adorable, but I also genuinely think it is creative idea. The book is for a younger audience, probably first grade and bellow. I think any cat lover would madly fall in love with this book, but also a book for all types of kids. The images are simple, but still adorable. I highly recommended this book.
June 5, 2017
Biasanya Marjane Satrapi membahas tentang revolusi di Iran yang pernah terjadi dalam hidupnya. Tapi, melalui buku Monster Takut Bulan ini, Marjane Satrapi menunjukkan sisi lainnya, yakni kepeduliannya terhadap literasi anak-anak. Dan menurut saya, buku ini cukup menarik, seperti menjelaskan asal mula suatu mitos atau kejadian tertentu, digambarkan dengan cara yang menarik pula.
February 10, 2010
Monsters are afraid of the Moon... and cats! Glad this story ended happily, especially with a cast of characters like this: "three of the scariest monsters who ever lived," cats who can't see in the dark!?, the stealing rats, and a very diplomatic Cat King accompanied by his cabinet minister.
August 19, 2013
I'm Satrapi's fan but not quite sure how to rate children's book. Apparently I'm not targeted reader so I an only say the book is cute and I hope my niece will like it. Later I'll introduce her [my niece] with other Satrapi's work that are one of my favourite reads.
February 11, 2007
great for the kiddie population.
June 16, 2007
very cute story for imaginative kids, young and old. marjane's signature artwork really makes it.
Want to read
January 10, 2008want to read ..gotta get it
May 12, 2008
Adorable children's book about a little girl who is terrorized by three monsters every night. She develops a plan, but the result causes problems for others. Cute story.
December 29, 2008
I gave this to my daughter for a Christmas present. She loves, I love it. Please consider giving it to any child you know.
May 5, 2009
Short review with some pictures here:
http://everydayislikewednesday.blogsp...
http://everydayislikewednesday.blogsp...
November 5, 2009
Some of the cutest cat drawings you have ever seen.
August 28, 2010
biasa aja, nothing special di cerita nya
tapi gambarnya bagus..
cuma kurang penuh..
lebih suka Ajdar, ah..
tapi gambarnya bagus..
cuma kurang penuh..
lebih suka Ajdar, ah..
June 2, 2010
this story tells us how is it
March 14, 2012
Really cute book. The injured cats are gorgeous.
October 20, 2013
690 - 2013
#Program BUBU
Pertama kali dibeli dan dibaca pada tanggal 13 Juni 2010.
#Program BUBU
Pertama kali dibeli dan dibaca pada tanggal 13 Juni 2010.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews