I wrote The Sock Monster as a children’s book for a contest. The story focuses on setting out to make discoveries, not accepting the ordinary or obvious and questioning arbitrary conventions. The Sock Monster was illustrated by Alexandra Sternin.
Excerpt: The Sock Monster
Story by Jakob Straub, illustrations by Alexandra Sternin.
Camilo always had a lot of questions, which his mom had to answer.
“Why are the dinosaurs exctinct?”
“Why can nothing travel faster than the speed of light?”
“Why is the sky blue at day and black at night?”
“Here is a question for you two detectives,” Camilo’s dad said.
“Why do your socks keep disappearing, Camilo?”
“Maybe the sock monster is taking them,” Camilo’s mom said.
“The sock monster?” Camilo’s dad asked. “I would like to meet that monster.”
“I would, too!” Camilo exclaimed.
And so it happened.
“Are you taking my socks?” Camilo asked.
“Excuse me,” said the sock monster, “I am looking for my own socks!”
“Are the disappearing, too?” asked Camilo.
“My mom asked me why my socks are always disappearing,” said the sock monster.
“My mom said you were taking my socks!”
“No, I’m not!” protested the sock monster.
“We must solve this mystery together!”
“Let’s look for our socks!”
Together, they left no stone unturned.
They looked in all the possible and impossible, likely and unlikely, plausible and implausible, probable and improbable places in which a sock could end up or turn up.
