Monsters You Should Know by Emma SanCartier

 

I'm still slowly getting back into reading after taking a bit of a hiatus to publish my newest book, and lucky for me, Chronicle Books seems to be having an online book sale as of my writing this because a pretty considerable amount of their library was $1.99 and $2.99 each when I checked, so cut to me immediately snatching up all of these amazingly weird books about fashion and art and other weird things, like the history of pencils.

MONSTERS YOU SHOULD KNOW is an illustrated beastiary of monsters from all over the world, from South America to the United Kingdom to Africa. The illustrations are gorgeous watercolors and it comes back full circle from the beginning in a fun and unexpected way that serves as a really nice callback.

I think this is probably being aimed and targeted to children, but adults will like it too, just because some of the creatures in here are so fascinating. My only qualm is that it's too short-- I wanted more monsters! More illustrations! More everything!

Hopefully there will be a follow-up.

4.5 out of 5 stars