Beckett's Monsters

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Loreen M

There is something quietly brilliant about a children's book that takes a completely ordinary moment, a trip to the fair, and turns it into a lesson that stays with a child long after the last page. That's exactly what Robin Sturm pulls off in Beckett's Monsters, and she does it without once making the message feel like a lesson.

Reading this book alongside a child feels warm in a way that's hard to manufacture. The excitement Beckett carries into the fair is completely recognizable, that particular kind of joy kids have before something they've been looking forward to. And then the fear arrives, sudden and real, because the monster trucks are so much bigger than anything he imagined. That shift lands genuinely. It doesn't feel staged or convenient. It feels like something that actually happens to children all the time, in a hundred different situations, and that honesty is what makes the story connect.

What Sturm is really writing about goes well beyond monster trucks. She's writing about the gap between how enormous our fears appear and how much bigger we actually are than them. That's a theme that doesn't age out. Adults recognize it just as clearly as children do, which is the mark of a picture book that works on more than one level. The presence of the grandparents, Papa and GZ, adds something specific and lovely here too. It's not a parent swooping in with reassurance. It's a different kind of love offering a different kind of steadiness, and children who are close to their grandparents will feel that distinction deeply.

Sturm's writing moves the way good read-aloud stories should: with rhythm, with breathing room, and with just enough space for a child's imagination to fill in the gaps. Nothing is over-explained. The confidence Beckett finds by the end feels earned rather than handed to him.

This is the kind of book that becomes a household favorite not because it tries to be, but because it deserves to be.

About The Author

Robin Sturm

Robin Conrad Sturm began her ballet training at the Washington School of the Ballet and is a graduate of the Academy of the Washington School of the Ballet. She was a full scholarship student at the American Ballet Theatre School and the School of American Ballet in New York City. She was a principal dancer with the Washington Ballet, of which she was a founding member. As a principal dancer with the Washington Ballet, Ms. Sturm originated many lead roles in the ballets of famed choreographer Choo San Goh, including “Introducing”, “Fives”, and “Synonyms.” She performed principal roles in many other ballets, including Heinz Claus’s “Carmina Burana,” Balanchine’s “Serenade,” and Goh’s “Octet.” She also appeared as a soloist in Jerome Hines’s opera, “I Am the Way,” at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

Ms. Sturm has been on the ballet faculty at the Washington School of the Ballet and the American University in Washington, D.C. Ms. Sturm and her husband, Robert, were the founding directors of the Masterworks Festival that has become one of the nation’s largest summer programs for classical music and dance. Ms. Sturm was a principal dancer and is currently artistic director of the Asaph Dance Ensemble. Ms. Sturm was the choreographer for the Asaph’s Handel’s “Messiah,” which was a Washington, D.C. tradition for many years and attracted thousands of people every Christmas season. 

Ms.Sturm is the author of Breathing Life Into Dance-second revised edition and several children’s books that are true accounts of life issues and their resolutions that are common to all studios and children as they grow and learn, including Hannah Finds Her Voice, Daniel Doesn’t Dance, Finally Friends, Luke’s Double Turn, That’s All I Do?, and Truman’s Triumph. 

Ms. Sturm and Hannah, the heroine of Hannah Finds Her Voice, have appeared on the Today show with Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford to talk about her book.