Brady and the Backyard Monster is a fun and inspiring picture storybook for children published in 2022. Written by Pattie Manente, in the story, Brady, the puppy dog, goes out in his backyard to play with his friends when he sees a shadow crawl up the fence and hears something knock against the tree; he is afraid that it’s a backyard monster.
The story goes on to show how he overcomes his fears with the help of his friends. Illustrated by Olena Kharkovenko, the vibrant and lively illustrations in the book play a vital role in the narration of the story. The pictures are engaging and are enough to keep the children hooked to the book.
Book Review: Brady and the Backyard Monster
Characters ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Brady is the central character of the story. He is a cute pet dog with a playful nature. Initially, he gets scared by his own imaginary monster. He later grows with the plot and demonstrates strength and bravery by overcoming his fears.
Brady’s friendly neighbor frog is Ribbity. He is an intelligent and helpful friend of Brady. He helps him calm down and forget about his fears.
Twitchy, a smart bird is also a very helpful friend of Brady. She helps him cope with his fears by sharing her own coping mechanism with him. The way she deals with her fears and helps Brady too shows how mature and bright she is.
Screechy is a gopher and another playful friend of Brady. He seems carefree and wise too. He helps Brady by sharing his way of dealing with fearful situations. He is a helpful and clever friend. When it comes to dealing with tough situations he relies on self-assurance and tells himself that he is strong enough to deal with the situation.
Writing Style ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The story is written in very easy language, the author also made sure to introduce a few new vocabulary and animal sounds side by side in the story, this will help in the brain development and contribute to the learning process of the children.
Illustrations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The illustrations in the book are really vibrant and realistic which makes it appealing to children’s eyes and will be able to keep them engaged and who doesn’t like that…
| Writing Style | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Characters | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Illustrations | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| Vowelor Review: A vibrant and value-based story that keeps the children hooked as well as contributes to their personal development. |
5.0 |
Reasons to add this book to your TBR
Overall this is a well-thought-through book that is vibrant, colorful, interactive, and has a good storyline with a hint of suspense and a lot of fun energy.
The story imparts the valuable lesson that sometimes our fears are nowhere near as scary as we imagine them to be. It conveys strong messages of courage, overcoming one’s fears, and friendship. This story will not only keep the children entertained but will also instill these values in them while helping in their personal development.
About the Author: Pattie Manente
Pattie Manente, a nationally certified hypnotherapist, lives in California with her husband Sebatino, and furbaby Brady. She worked in the healthcare field for 40 years which gave her a firsthand experience of how overwhelming fear and stress can be.
She educated clinicians in stress release, management, and resilience techniques. She has also helped people of all ages develop healthy self-care habits and aims to empower the youngest learners and develop healthy habits, self-growth values, and courage among them.
Brady and the Backyard Monster is the book with which she made an award-winning debut in this field. The book received the Mom’s Choice Gold Award in 2022 and NYC Big Book’s Distinguished Favourite in the “Well-being Children” category in 2022.
This review was written by one of the Vowelor’s book review team members – Shubhangi Shreya. She is a multipotentialite. She is a curious head who is always egar to learn new things.
She is a graphic designer and an aspiring journalist. In her free time she loves to discover new books and stories to add to her collection.