High energy singer Phipps does the monster bit justice with silly, snappy spoofs like "Monster's On Vacation" ("It's hard to get a tan when you're furry and green"). On this, her third album, she also serves up an enjoyably eccentric mish mash of songs about odd caracters in a variety of styles. . .

Sometimes the surest way to calm children's fears of monsters is not to deny that the beasties exist but to convince kids that they are not all that different from the monsters themselves. This is Bonnie Phipps's approach, exemplified charmingly on her upbeat, sunshiny new release. In "Monster's On Vacation", the monsters "spent a week in Rome eatin' meatballs and spaghetti/Then they flew to Tibet to ski with a yeti," among other adventures. In "Children Under The Bed" (co-written by superb kids' artist Dave Kinnoin), the customary tables are turned when the reluctant sleeper is a timid little monster, terrified by the kids who might "eat young monsters in the middle of the night". There also is a delightful gross-out tune called "The Three Foot Sandwich" and "The Ballad of Lucy Lum", about a prodigious bubble-gum chewer.

By turns deft and daft, Bonnie Phipps sings about the important things in life: dogs, aardvarks, chickens, swimming, bubble gum and a sandwich that's three feet long. She's comfortable doing Beach Boys-style rock, old-fashioned swing, and the straight-ahead country of Buck Owens (who wrote the title song). In addition, Phipps is one fine Autoharp player, and she knows what little monsters worry about: "Children Under the Bed."

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