Allow me to reveal the cover of THE MONSTORE, my June 2013 picture book illustrated by James Burks!

It’s so fabulous I spend hours staring at it as if I’m a 7th grade dork in love with a 1981 poster of Rick Springfield.

Forget about wishing to be Jessie’s girl, I’d rather be James’s girl, ’cause the dude seriously knows how to whiz-bang-kaPOW a picture book cover. ( Oh, Rick, please don’t take it personally.)

That’s main character Zack front-and-center with his pesky little sister Gracie popping into the frame. The hulking orange guy is Manfred, the flying monster is Mookie, and that’s Mojo with the striped, wiggling arms and crooked horns. Peeper is the little eyeball perched on the Monstore sign, although he isn’t named in the book. He’s James’s invention!

That leaves the red broom guy. And guess what? He doesn’t have a name. Well, he does because James names all the character he draws, but this monster never gets mentioned in the story.

So here’s a monster of a contest for ya: try to guess the name James gave him! If you do, you’ll win an original, autographed monster sketch by the talented Mr. Burks. If no one guesses his correct name, or if there’s more than one correct answer, the ultimate winner will be decided by Random.org.  UPDATE: We’re now giving away TWO sketches because y’all have come up with such great names. One to the person who guesses the name and one random winner chosen from the rest of the entries.

You get one entry for commenting and then one additional entry for each place you share THE MONSTORE cover—blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Just leave a comment letting us know! The contest closes one week from today, so get those monsterly names in!

Hope you love the cover.

And if Rick Springfield is out there, how about playing my book launch party?

Have your people call my monsters.