You too can have an original monster delivered to your home each month!
Monsters In My Mailbox is a 1995 children's book written by Ellen Jackson and illustrated by Maxie Chambliss. The story is about young Reginald McGillicuddy and his attempt to gain friends by joining the Monster-of-the-Month Club, seeing as he has no kids to play with besides Anna Marie, a girl. However, the continual deliveries of new creatures spirals into a monster problem...
Provides Examples Of:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Stinky wears red booties and nothing else.
- An Aesop: You can be friends with the opposite sex.
- Baseball Episode: Reginald eventually gets so many monsters that he made a baseball team in December, at least until Binky stole and ate all the bases.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Many monsters qualify, though Stinky takes the cake claiming to eat mud pies and box springs. He also mentions that he enjoys snacking on dust balls.
- Breath Weapon: Finky can breathe fire.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Anna Marie first appears simply as Reginald's only neighbor his own age. However, when the monsters get out of control, she reveals that she knows what to do, having been a member of the club herself.
- Congestion Speak: Finky has a cold when he arrives and his speech is a little messed up as a result (e.g., "doze" for "nose").
- Courier: One is seen delivering the monster Stinky to Reginald. The other monsters were also presumably delivered by others.
- Funny Background Event: As Reginald spends all day cleaning up his room the monsters Stinky, Binky and Finky are toasting marshmallows.
- Girls Have Cooties: Reginald is lonely at the beginning but doesn't want to play with Anna Marie because she's a girl. He changes his mind at the end and asks her over to play checkers.
- Inferred Survival: After Reginald sprays the monsters with a garden hose they simply disappear. They all did technically survive, but with the exception of Winky were turned into fireflies.
- Kids Love Dinosaurs: Reginald seems to certainly think so, having quite a collection of dinosaur memorabilia. Several monsters; like Binky, are also clearly inspired by dinosaurs as well. Hell, at least one dinosaur or dinosaur-like monster is present on most pages in the book!
- Lovable Coward: Winky is apparently scared of the dark and spiders and begs Reginald to let him sleep with him. When he sees Ginky's teeth gleaming in the moonlight as Ginky takes a breath, he panics.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Reginald is surprisingly chipper when he finds out what happened to the monsters. He might have just been happy that Winky's okay, despite having been shrunk, but that still means that all the other monsters were turned into mere insects.
- Metamorphosis Monster: Unless it's dried off quickly, a wet monster will turn into a firefly.
- Monster Roommate: Many of the monsters live somewhere in Reginald's room. It ends up being deconstructed, given that by the time Winky arrives the room is pretty crowded. The close quarters cause the ending, given that if the monster had had more space, they might not have accidentally upset each other and run amok.
- Mundane Utility: Finky uses his fire breath to roast marshmallows.
- Nobody Can Die: Not that being turned into fireflies is much better.
- Not Quite Dead: Except for Winky all of the monsters were turned into fireflies.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Finky, though never called a dragon, is clearly based on them; he even breathes fire.
- Our Monsters Are Different: You get them from the mail.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: What you need to do when the monsters run amok; which is shared in the directions to the monsters, as stated by Anna Marie.When wet, monsters will shrink, then turn into harmless fireflies.
- Parental Obliviousness: Neither of Reginald's parents notices that there are monsters in their house or that their son is hiding them. They do find the aftermath but blame it on Reginald. Later, they hear the noise made when Reginald has to get many of the monsters a drink, but pass it off with a more mundane explanation.I think we have mice.
- Plot Point: If Reginald never found the unusual Monster-of-the-Month Club advertisement, there wouldn't be a story.
- Redshirt Army: Though technically still alive.
- Rhyme Theme Naming: The monsters all have names ending in "inky".
- Strong Family Resemblance: Reginald looks quite a bit like his parents.
- Twofer Token Minority: Anna Marie is Ambiguously Brown and female.
- Unnamed Parent: Downplayed. We know what the last name of Reginald's parents is McGillicuddy due to Reginald's introduction. Anna Marie's parents are introduced a Mr. and Mrs. Applebee.
Two monsters sound just right.
—Reginald McGillicuddy
