The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover

"The Monster at the End of This Book" redirects here. For the Supernatural episode, see The Monster at the End of This Book (Supernatural).

The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover

Cover image
Author	Jon Stone
Illustrator	Michael Smollin
Cover artist	Michael Smollin
Language	English
Series	Sesame Street
Subject	Monsters
Genre	Children
Published	1971 (Golden Books)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
ISBN	0-307-01085-6 (1996 ed.)
Dewey Decimal	813.1
LC Class	MLCS 2006/42214 (P)
Followed by	'Would You Like To Play Hide and Seek with Lovable, Furry Old Grover?'

The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover is a children's picture book based on the television series Sesame Street and starring Grover. It was written by series writer and producer Jon Stone and illustrated by Michael Smollin, and originally published by Little Golden Books in 1971. It has since become the all-time best-selling Sesame Street book title and has been cited as a modern classic of children's literature.

Plot

Having read the title page (or, in later editions, the cover) Grover is horrified to learn that there is a monster at the end of the book. He immediately begs the reader not to finish the book, so as to avoid meeting this dreadful scary monster.

Growing increasingly fearful as the reader continues to turn pages and frustrated that they do not seem to realize the terrible danger, Grover resorts to constructing a series of ever-more-elaborate obstacles, such as tying pages together, nailing the page to the next one and finally even laying a brick wall to keep the reader from advancing further. But nothing works (primarily because from the reader's POV these are simple illustrations, not actual difficulties).

Finally driven to total despair by the reader's ability to "overcome" the obstacles, Grover makes one last frantic plea to the reader not to turn the final page...

...Only to discover on that page, in a surprise self-referential plot twist, that the only monster in question is Grover himself. He tries to laugh it off, saying he knew it all along—but the reader can see at the end that he is terribly embarrassed.

Reception

Originally written to introduce young children to the concept of reading a book from beginning to end, The Monster at the End of This Book is the best-selling Sesame Street book title of all time. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the book one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 it was ranked number ten among the "Top 100 Picture Books" in a survey published by School Library Journal.

Sequels and adaptations

Two direct sequels were produced, also written by Stone and Illustrated by Smollin. Would You Like To Play Hide and Seek with Lovable, Furry Old Grover? (ISBN 978-0394832920), was published in 1976, while Another Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover, and Equally Lovable, Furry Little Elmo (ISBN 0-375-80562-1), was published in 1996. The latter features Grover now coping with Elmo actually encouraging the reader to turn the pages out of sheer curiosity.

On January 30, 2013, the Sesame Street Twitter account adapted the story to the popular social media network, again starring Grover with some impromptu assistance from Wil Wheaton.

Stage Musical

In 1972, Charles Strouse adapted the book into a famous stage musical, the production ran from 1972 to 1974 at the palace theatre. It started Vincent Price as Grover, In 1975, the musical was adopted for an animated tv special, the art design was made by Neil goodrige, Grover’s Original Voice Frank Oz Played Him Once Again In This Tv Special.

The Televison Special got vhs and dvd releases in 1979, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2004 (the 2004 vhs and dvd’s Studio company was story vision/hinkler books, this version has a hand (played by Edward Dix) turning the pages, and for the first time ever, grover’s Voice was changed from Frank Oz to Eric Jacobson), 2006 (the 2006 dvd’s Studio company was Sony wonder and it was adopted from the 2006 sesame workshop ebook with highlights) and 2010 (the 2010 dvd’s Studio company was Warner home video and was adopted from the 2010 iPad app where you can touch the knots and break the wall by touching it), Another monster at the end of this book got an app and dvd release (inspired by the original book’s ones) in the following year, 2011 as well.

In other media

• A season four episode of Supernatural is called "The Monster at the End of This Book." In it, lead characters Dean and Sam discover a prophet has made a book series about their lives, including events to come.
• Animated series Johnny Bravo spoofed the concept in an episode called "The Hunk at the End of This Cartoon", wherein Johnny tried to keep the cartoon from ending because there was supposedly a hunk at the end of it that was not him. It turned out to be a large piece of cheese being chased by mice.
• A reference to the books is made in the webcomics Dinosaur Comics and Sheldon.
• The book is referenced by Jimmy Fallon (impersonating Jim Morrison of The Doors) in his cover version of the theme to the PBS series Reading Rainbow.

External links

The Monster at the End of This Book on Muppet Wiki