I loved being able to read this story to my kids. I am 'from' the Chicago area but before they were born. All things Chicago are a big hit here in our home :)

This is part of a series of travel books for children and what wonderful books they are!!! This series is a really cool concept making it fun for kids to learn about places to visit and interesting sights to see in a city while looking for monsters in each page of the book! Each page of the book mentions an attraction with an interesting fact or two about it; and your job (well, actually your child’s!) is to find the many monsters lurking on that page (but I competed with mine to find them; and I also need to say, none of my kids are little anymore at fourteen and eleven!!). The monsters are definitely hiding well so it takes some time to find all of them; the number of monsters on each page is helpfully pointed out by the host monster (pictured on the cover as well) at the bottom of the page.
The illustrations are bright, colorful, and fun while also being depicting the landmarks and attractions pretty accurately so that children can use that to recognize the real deal when visiting the city. And I am sure that kids will enjoy pointing out the attractions they have already visited on books they are reading.
And the message that I think we can all take from these books – When (and where and how) cute little comic book monsters have fun exploring the city, we can have fun too – so let us get out and explore!!! I cannot wait to explore – the cities; and also more of these books.
I just wish that these books could have had a few more pages listing a few more attractions, to make them lots more fun.
A couple of comments on this specific book
Chicago – one city we have not visited yet, but now I have a list of attractions handy with me for when we do plan our trip to the Windy City!!
Thanks to NetGalley for the digital review copy of this book

This is a fun book for young children that helps them become familiar with a city before they travel there or familiar with their own city.

Fun and entertaining to read with kids. Liked the facts and the monsters. Good illistrations. Would recommend this book.

My kid loves tiny cute mosteres and minions. This book was his favorite fun activity. He went through pages and find out monster hidden in various places. This series is good to develop visual observation in kids.

We enjoyed reading this book, though some of the monsters were a little tough to spot. I would have loved to see a tiny bit more background on each location/landmark. As a Chicago native, I enjoyed reading about Chicago's landmarks and teaching them to my children. Cute illustrations.

Very cute introduction for children to the most famous locales in Chicago. The monsters are cute and often well-hidden, but an intense search for extra eyeballs always reveals their hiding spots! I'm sure any child would be entertained on many levels.

'Chicago Monsters: A Search-And-Find Book' by Carine LaForest with art by Lucile Danis Drouot is a picture book introduction to a city, with the additional task of looking for hidden monsters.

The familiar sites of Chicago are presented: The Cloud Gate, the Michigan Street Bridge, Lincoln Park Zoo and others. Hidden among the drawings are little monsters to find. Some are pretty obvious, and some are hidden a bit more. Each page tells you how many monsters are hiding.

It's a cute book for a young traveler to a new city, or perhaps for a child who lives in the city. At only 22 pages, it seems a bit skimpy.

I received a review copy of this ebook from City Monsters, Chouette Publishing, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

Chicago Monsters is the next entry in the Finding Monsters series by Carine Laforest and Lucille Danis Drouot. It's an intriguing idea - to sneakily teach kids more about famous locations under the guise of having them carefully looking for monsters hidden in the scenes. It is, indeed, an intriguing idea, but unfortunately, I wasn't fond of the execution.

One of the biggest things that bothered me was that Chicago Monsters just abruptly ends after a beach scene. There's no wrap up at all. Not even one of those cheesy "Congratulations, you've found all the monsters in Chicago" type pages. It just ends on a beach scene and that is that. I think if it had some sort of ending which officially brought things to an end, it would be a lot less jarring.

The illustrations are good. The Chicago Monsters are mostly easy to spot (as an adult at least), but there were a couple pages where I didn't find all of them. My child successfully found all of them but one when she looked. The text included on the pages is very basic. Basically names and locations with very little other information given. This is definitely targeted at small readers and will not appeal to older children.

Overall, Chicago Monsters was a fun board book for little readers.

A delightfully fun monster book for kids of all ages.

Another awesome book in the City Monsters Series. The kids and I have explored several of these books. The kids love finding the hidden City Monsters. Each page tells you how many monsters are hiding, great for kids learning to count. The book features several tourist highlights from Chicago. The book is very well illustrated.. With the bright colors and fun pictures all kids will enjoy. There really is no story to this book it is more like short tidbits about each area covered in the book Like the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park and the Chicago Water tower.

Chicago Monsters, is the third book in the City Monsters, Search and Find, series that I have reviewed. The others being, New York city, and San Francisco.

In this book, based in the windy city, there are monsters hiding amongst some of the most famous landmarks, including, Michigan Avenue Bridge, Crown Fountain (with it’s changing faces), and Chicago Water Tower. Some are easy to find, others will take you quite a while. There are also a different amount of monsters to find on each page.

As you may of gathered, seen as this is the third book that I have reviewed in this series, these books are a firm favourite in our house, not just with the kids either, I think they are great too. My son asks me at least once a week if I have more to review, unfortunately, not at this moment.

The books are all beautifully illustrated, brightly coloured and depict the famous landmarks with accuracy. They are fun to read, and educational too, what more could you want?

I do hope that there will be a lot more of these books published in the future, (I know that Boston and Washington DC are due for release in August 2017), if so, you will certainly find them all being reviewed on this blog.

This is an adorable little picture activity book. We live in Illinois and own other Chicago landmark themed children's books. This one does not disappoint. The artwork and the way they captured Chicago landmarks was beautiful and the drawings of the little monsters hidden among them were adorable. This was a fun little book to read with my autistic son and watch him find the monsters.

Like all the other Monster books , this too is fun for kids, looking all over to find the hiding monsters.

Received an ARC from NetGalley. The book is a fun tour guide for kids to Chicago. It gives them their own little guide to the things in the city that would enthrall them with the challenge of finding the lovable monsters.

Chicago Monsters: A Search-and-Find Book is written by Carine Laforest and illustrated by Lucile Danis Drouot. This book is part of the City Monsters series, which "takes you on a sightseeing adventure. Find the hidden little monsters as you discover big-city landmarks."

As an interactive story, children will learn about the city of Chicago, as they search and find adorable monsters throughout the colorful illustrations of city landmarks, such as Cloud Gate, Shedd Aquarium, Navy Pier, Art Institute of Chicago, and Lincoln Park Zoo.

According to the back cover, "The Windy City is such a great place to live that even little monsters have taken up residence there.... Have fun spotting them all as you explore some of Chicago's most iconic landmarks and sights."

This easy-to-read book is a charming children's travel book, which is geared towards younger readers, particularly ages three to eight.


Note: I received this book from NetGalley, which is a program designed for bloggers to write book reviews in exchange for books, yet the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Each page of this book contains monsters, not many of them scary; it’s up to your kid—or you—to find them. Period. That’s all there is to this, and it’s beautiful. Some are of course easy, but it’s hard to get them all on the first try, especially in the latter pages.
Since this is the Chicago version they start with the Bean. Not as many well-known places as the NY edition; can’t wait for them to get to El Lay.
The whole thing is done in big bright colors that make it a joy to look through.

Some of the monsters were hard to find. The authors did do a good job of highlighting aspects of Chicago that will still be around in a few years so the book won't become dated. Cute idea.

My boys loved this book. So cute, well done! Their favorite was the monster coming out of the fountain. We have been to Chicago many times and they enjoyed seeing the places they had visited in this book. This is also a great way to illustrate a city you have not visited.