Benita and the Night Creatures / Benita y las criaturas nocturnas

by Mariana Llanos
illustrated by Cocoretto

“Young book lovers will relate to Benita’s devotion to reading and be amused by the friendly night creatures, who are all based on Peruvian legends” – The Horn Book Magazine

“Booo!” screamed Cuco, and the tree outside the window shivered.
“You too!” Benita replied, and she flipped a page.

On a dark, dark night, Benita is just settling in to enjoy a nice book before bedtime when all of a sudden… Boo! Spooky creatures from Peruvian lore jump keep interrupting her! To the creatures’ disbelief, she doesn’t look up from her book. Why isn’t Benita afraid? Why is she so cranky? And what is this thing called a book? This humorous celebration of bedtime reading puts a global twist on taking the “scary” out of monsters.

• Perfect for spooky autumn nights and brave bedtimes all year long
• Endnotes provide more information on Peru and the creatures featured in the story

32 pages | 4-9 years old | Preschool – 4  | Barefoot Books | 2023

Mariana Llanos is a Peruvian-born writer of children’s literature. In 2017, she was selected as the Best Latino Artist by the Hispanic Arts Council of Oklahoma, where she resides. Her first picture book for Barefoot Books, Run, Little Chaski!, was chosen for the 2022 Oklahoma Book Award and as a 2022 Library of Congress Great Reads Selection. When she’s not writing, she enjoys baking, spending time with her children, and visiting schools to ignite the love for reading.

Cocoretto is a Peruvian-born couple and team, Ivan and Natalia. They are illustrators, authors and designers with backgrounds in fine arts, graphic design and photography. With their strong graphic sense and bright, saturated colors, they like to build compelling and relatable environments for their work. They feel grateful to have the chance to make children around the world giggle and smile with their many books and translations. Ivan and Natalia live and work in the noisy city of Lima, the capital of Peru.