Worry Monsters

Sponsored by Disney-Hyperion.

Mo Willems is a master storyteller and I am thrilled that he is tackling the subjects of friendship and anxiety in his new book Sam, the Most Scaredy-cat Kid in The Whole World. You might recognize Sam and his monster buddy Leonardo from Willems’ 2005 book Leonardo, The Terrible Monster. In this tale, Sam is STILL afraid of everything except his monster buddy Leonardo. One day when he runs into another monster and the monster’s kid Sam flips out and so does the kid, Kerry. The monsters decide to take things into their own hands and let the kids figure it out. This is a lovely story about conquering fears and finding people who get you.

After reading and giggling with the super rad Leonardo puppet ( it is so soft) that was sent to us with the book my daughter and I decided to make some worry monsters. I have to admit we are a family of worriers and I was excited to make this to have another tool for us to use to ease our worries.

Gather your materials. You will need some smooth rocks ( we got these from the dollar store), and paint pens. Use paint pens that say permanent and water resistant. This will make sure that if your little one wants to put the worry monster in their pocket and hold it with sweaty hands without the paint coming off.

Start creating.

While creating talk about how to use these worry monsters. We discussed telling our monsters our worries and that we could squeeze them when our hands are shaking.

We had so much fun making these monsters we just didn’t want to stop. Even better than the worry monsters was the discussions about worries and how we can power through them.