As its title suggests, Jessica Takes Charge is a picture book that celebrates a preschooler’s determination to deal with her own problem – although her solution involves her parents in comical discomfort. Jessica’s particular problem is a fear of monsters, and she’s convinced there’s one in her house because she hears it growling at night. When her parents dismiss her fears, and her Gramps responds by telling her a scary monster story of his own, Jessica decides that it is up to her to deal with the monster herself. After some middle-of-the-night misadventures and surprises, like getting caught in her own monster trap and scaring herself by stepping on a wet sponge, Jessica finds her sand pail full of water and carries it up to her parents’ bedroom, where the growling sounds are coming from. There is suspense as brave Jessica prowls through the dark house, and growing humour as the reader speculates on what (or, rather, who) is making the growling sounds and is about to be doused with water.

Calgary writer Linda LaRose has a clever idea for the story, with suspense, a surprise climax, and a reassuring resolution. In actually telling the story, however, she doesn’t manage to enter into Jessica’s awareness but remains self-consciously outside it. The book seems wordy, especially in Jessica’s prolonged falling asleep after the climax. Leanne Franson’s illustrations, on the other hand, economically capture the moods of mingled drama and comedy, and pick up on and develop suggestions in the text, such as Jessica’s abundance of monster toys, to good effect.