The Essential Worldwide Monster Guide - Hardcover

As you travel around the world, from South America to Australia and back, you never know what types of mischievous spirits or monsters you might encounter. The Essential Worldwide Monster Guide issues helpful advice for the international traveler who comes face-to-fang with beast, troll, or hotot. As the playful poet Linda Ashman cautions, "The hotot will lurk in the muckiest murk,/ Devising unpleasant surprises./ Don't fall for his charm. Don't reach for his arm./ Get wise to the hotot's disguises." Sage, indeed. The guidebook further warns that "Hotots are evil spirits found in Armenian swamps and rivers. They try to fool their victims by appearing as pleasant, dancing creatures, but always have swamp-muck on their clothes." If you want to know where Armenia is, let alone a hotot, a handy world map on the inside cover provides a legend showing the 13 countries and/or continents mentioned and the monsters that inhabit them. Caldecott artist David Small (So You Want to Be President) is as at ease with the mythical as the political. His wonderful depictions of Scandinavian trolls and tourists, the sleek and scary sirens of Greece, the ten-headed Ravana of India, and the gentle but highly unkissable Ki-lin of China ("Temper your exuberance! Note the sharp protuberance!") are truly fabulous. Highly recommended. (Ages 6 and older) --Karin Snelson