Written and Drawn by Henrietta

As this story-within-a-story begins, Henrietta has just received a new box of colored pencils. She starts right in, drawing and writing a story she calls “The Monster with Three Heads and Two Hats.” In the uproarious, childlike style Liniers (The Big Wet Balloon) uses for Henrietta’s work, the monster’s heads look like three enraged jack-o’-lanterns. “It’s nighttime... Emily’s in bed,” Henrietta imagines, drawing Emily staring with wide-open eyes. “I’m scaring myself...” Henrietta says. Throughout, Liniers documents the way that Henrietta is both the source of her creation and the object of its emotional force; when the monster meets an even larger monster, Henrietta reacts with a yell at what she’s drawn. There’s plenty of laughter, too, as when the monster complains about the size of Emily’s wardrobe: “We’ve been looking for a hat in there for months.” Henrietta explains to her cat, Fellini, “You see, the wardrobe was made in Narnia.” Liniers’s creation brims with the power of invention, and Henrietta’s boldness (and her confidence in her own talent) inspires. A Spanish-language edition is available simultaneously. Ages 5–up. (Sept.)