Monday, September 9, 2019

The Big Book of Monsters: The Creepiest Creatures from Classic Literature by Hal Johnson (Children's Book Review)

I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

The Big Book of Monsters:
The Creepiest Creatures from Classic Literature
Written by Hal Johnson
Illustrated by Tim Sievert
Published by Workman Publishing Group
on September 3, 2019
Genre: Children's, Nonfiction
Length: 176 pages
Ages: 10 - 18 years

Meet the monsters in this who's who of the baddest of the bad!

Like those supernatural beasts everyone knows and fears--the bloodsucking vampire, Count Dracula, and that eight-foot-tall mash-up of corpses, Frankenstein's Monster. Or that scariest of mummies, Cheops, who scientists revived after 4,700 years--big mistake! Or more horrifying yet, the Horla, an invisible, havoc-wreaking creature that herds humans like cattle and feeds on their souls.

Drawn from the pages of classic books and tales as old as time, this frightfully exciting collection features 25 of the creepiest creatures ever imagined, from witches and werewolves to dragons and ghosts. Every monster is brought to life in a full-size full-color portrait that catches the essence of the beast, and in lively text that recounts the monster's spine-tingling story. With sidebars that explore the history and the genre of each sourcebook, The Big Book of Monsters is an exciting introduction to literature and language arts. 


My Thoughts:
This big book of monsters shares 25 well known monsters from classic literature paired with spectacular illustrations and extra information about the monsters and similar works of fiction. 

This is the perfect monster collection!
Each monster has their story explained, examples of literature with similar monsters, and a handy chart that shares when and where the monster and it's book took place, dastardly deeds that monster may have committed, and even a 'scare factor' that is shown with little skulls!
This was fantastic! I absolutely love Gothic literature and basically anything with monsters so I was very excited to read this for Autumn and get into that spooky reading mood! I loved the quotes and passages included as well as the 'Beyond the Book' sections that gave us further reading recommendations (or at least I'm seeing them that way!) with similar monsters or information about the author (such as Mary Shelley's memorable story of how she came up with the idea for Frankenstein)!


The end-of-the-book extras include a timeline that shows the literature that these monsters derived from in order of their existence, from Ancient times to the Gothic literature era;  a list of further reading; and even more monsters that were not given their own special feature!

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