What a great way to learn about classic literature's creepy monsters. I love Dracula, Frankenstein …. Very interesting to explore their origins while also enjoying the illustrations.

Each monster was well covered, in addition to lots of extra info. for anyone wanting to find their favorites in other places. Excellent illustrations and style make this book well worth the read.

This book has a lot of good information about a variety of monsters and creatures. The drawings were pretty good too. My son was nut a huge fan though of this book.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A pretty interesting read. Short stories about different monsters. Not too scary.

Adorable and enjoyable. Ideal birthday gift for a kid who loves monster and maybe for one who needs to make friends with them.


Thank you to Netgalley for the free arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Big Book of Monsters is a gleefully wide-ranging look at spooky and scary creatures throughout the history of literature and folklore. Witty and informative, it is a terrific resource for young monster enthusiasts and for readers who might be reluctant to read older works. The illustrations are gorgeous, with bold lines and saturated colors that contrast sharply between deep darks and piercing neons. Cartoony and eerie, the art style is perfect for middle grade horror fans.

The format makes for brisk reading, with hilarious classifications for each creature that include “most dastardly deeds” and a “fear factor” rating that calls to mind comic book power grids. Each entry includes quotes from the source material and provides fun facts and interesting analysis to get kids thinking critically about the stories and the people who created them.

This encyclopedia of monsters, ghouls, and creeps will open up a world of reading. The book references classics of literature and mythology from all over the world. Encouraging kids to broaden their horizons and seek out other books is always a wonderful thing, but with so many caregivers struggling to find activities for children during our current global situation, it’s even more beneficial to have a book that might lead kids to seek out Jules Verne and Japanese myths and Mary Shelley and the Epic of Gilgamesh. (Especially when most, if not all, of the source material can be found for free on public domain reading sites like Project Gutenberg!)

With its striking art and engaging text, The Big Book of Monsters is a fun and spooky introduction to the history of literary monsters. Kids will love the dynamic illustrations and the wry humor, and they are sure to find at least a few monsters that inspire them to read beyond the covers of this fantastic collection. The back matter includes a wealth of resources as well, making this a must-have title for any monster enthusiast’s library.

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!

This is not your typical scary monster book. This reminds me of when I read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore. Here's a book filled with creatures I've heard of but many I never knew of. That's what made this a fun read for me. The writer has a knowledge of the stories these creatures are from this is easy to understand. This book is for someone who really loves Halloween or is a very avid reader of book s before 1900. I can't recommend it for everyone but for those who will enjoy it I cannot recommend it enough.

Note, I know the author personally but that did not sway my review of this book. It did remind me that he has a depth of literature that is very impressive. That knowledge shines through in this book.

I love the illustrations, the content, and the delicious sidebars, and trivia. I can't wait to unpack each character with my monster-loving children.

Adorable! Amazing vividly colorful artwork that gives it an extra "scary" Vibe! the "backgrounds" on the monsters are great and vastly diverse. Definitely a book I'll have to own!

Fantastic illustrations!

The stories were perhaps a bit too abbreviated. Some were critters I had never even heard of before.

Most of my middle school readers do not like horror at all, so I am still undecided if this one might get them interested in the genre.

I did find it odd that some of the monsters were from books that required a significantly higher reading level than the intended age for this title. Not sure if this would inspire them to pick up the original or not.

The Big Book of Monsters is a fantastic book! Monsters from all over the world. Monsters I grew up fearing and monsters I have never heard of.

The information and extra tidbits on each monster was very interesting to read and the illustrations were vivid and popping. I loved the style of artwork throughout this book.

I would love to have an entire collection of informative books like this on my shelves. Fun to look at and interesting to read.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I've read a lot of children's reference books both fiction and nonfiction, as an avid reader I was delighted that this book was an in depth study of not just monsters, but their appearances in classical fiction and folklore.

Some of the monsters were familiar, but some were not. All of them were described in beautiful detail. I was impressed with how much the author knew not just about the creatures' origins but also in what books inspired it as well as what books were a products of the texts in question as well.

My complaints lie with the illustrations. I don't feel like they accurately advertise what the tone of the book is actually like. Many of these books I would not be required to read until high school and even college. This book is a very fun read while also being very academic and I think the illustrations cater to a much younger crowd than would be able to read the more advanced text.

I loved this book and I would purchase it for myself and recommend it to others.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

I adore monsters and monster books.. as do my kids. this book was interesting... the illustrations were great... but it wasn't one of our favorites unfortunately

First up thank you for this book and that I had a chance to try it out. Sadly, we didn't mesh together.
I love monsters, I love monsters in books, but this was just not for me. The way the stories were rehashed was just eh, it is a shame as the stories were often quite fun, but this was just like a high school book with summaries of books.
The art was just fabulous though, and I have flipped through the book to soak up those gorgeous illustrations. Can we have prints of those? I would buy them!

I want to thank #netgalley for giving me a copy of #TheBigBookOfMonsters to review. This is a good introduction book to famous monsters. Readers get a background story then a short story about each of the monsters. The illustrations are good. It wasn't what I was expecting, but still a book I would recommend to students.

When my kids were little we used to read a Sesame Street book that started this way: "Follow the Monsters wherever they go, sometimes they're fast, sometimes their slow..." This toddler book reminds me that kids are interested in monsters (Cookie and otherwise) from a young age. If you know a little monster who is interested in monsters, get them this book.

The author retells the stories of many monsters in a way that felt like hearing a story or fairy tale. Some of the many featured monsters are Apep (from Ancient Egypt), Beatrice Rappaccini (Hawthorne), Dorian Gray (Wilde), Frankenstein (Shelley), and The Weird Sisters (Shakespeare). Each entry includes additional facts including the category of monster, Base of Operations, Timing, Powers, Deeds, Fear Factor, Weakness, etc. There are additional sections that enlarge upon each monster's tale; for example, in the Dracula section, one can read Dear Dracula and The Grisly Tale of Elizabeth Siddal.

This book is a wonderful compilation of monsters, their stories and more. It will be welcomed by those who like the weird and wonderful.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this (scary...not really but good) read. All opinions are my own.
#TheBigBookOfMonsters #NetGalley