Amy's Monster

``When the summer holidays get too long,'' Amy's mother sends her off to visit her twin cousins Jocasta and Meredith. Tall for their age, with a somewhat maniacal look about them, these twins ``do mean things with fingernails and rubber bands'' when the adults aren't looking. Poor Amy is homesick and scared to death. The fact that Jocasta and Meredith harass her at night with tales of a grizzly monster that lives under the bed doesn't help. Finally, after a fear-filled evening, Amy discovers the very monster that the twins described. Even though she is consummately ugly--``with leathery wings, and bedposts for eyes''--Amy employs the creature to turn the tables on her terrible tormentors. Depicting suitably repulsive characters, Denton's illustrations bathed in the torrid colors of summer give electric shock value to a somewhat predictable story line. Ages 3-8. (May)