Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In this sequel to Leonardo, the Terrible Monster, monster Leonardo's buddy Sam meets a girl who's "the second-most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world." At first too scared of each other to become friends, eventually the children figure out their similarities and work out their differences. Willems's comic timing is spot-on in both the text and the color-coded illustrations that shine a light on the kids' histrionics. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A little over a decade after Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (2005) failed to scare even Sam, "the most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world," both monster and little white boy, now friends, are back. Sam, readers learn, is still scared of everything except Leonardo, so they will not be surprised at his abject terror at the sight of monster Frankenthaler and her friend Kerry, a little black girl. Being "the second-most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world," Kerry is equally terrified. Sam's "AAAAAAAAH"s and Kerry's "EEEEEEEEEK"s comically dominate the top halves of their respective sides of this double-page spread. Leonardo and Frankenthaler jump to the same, wrong conclusion: that each child is afraid of the unfamiliar monster. Apparently, however, it's the unfamiliar human that provokes such fright, though the book leaves it up to readers to decide what's so scary about each completely un-scary-looking child. A skilled, confident adult could use this moment to tease out a rich discussion. For their parts, Leonardo and Frankenthaler just leave it up to Sam and Kerry to "figure it out," leading to a rushed, superficial exploration of commonalities and differences. As a companion to Leonardo, this shares its predecessor's look and expectation-toppling gag, but it does not have the first book's effervescence nor its perfect pacingand, crucially, it doesn't get at the heart of what it seems to want readers to understand. A well-meaning miss. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.