A Monster Manual for Kids 👹
A Monster Manual for Kids 👹
While they might be scary, kids love monsters. This 1994 book is a great starter monster dictionary for the young and young-at-heart.
Around 1995, I was walking through Barnes & Noble when I spotted a familiar title, Monster Manual, on a book I didn’t recognize. As a player of Dungeons & Dragons, that title was reserved for various lexicons of monsters that added color to any RPG session. But this book was something different, it wasn’t affiliated with any gaming company, instead it was a book aimed at entertaining kids while introducing them to monsters. Never one to let an age recommendation limit my reading material, I picked it up, found a quiet seat, and started reading.
The book’s full title is Monster Manual: A Complete Guide to Your Favorite Creatures. It is credited to author Erich Ballinger and was released in 1994 by Lerner Publications. Looking inside, it appears that this is a reprint of the German language book, ABC für Monsterfans: ein Leseleikon.
The book is organized alphabetically, with entries for every letter of the alphabet. Monster coverage is uneven and sometimes inconsistent. Jumping from specific creatures like Dracula to more monster adjacent topics like, 3-D movies. It makes the book more of a journey than a straightforward reference book. Which is a great way to introduce this material to kids.
The book is chock-full of illustrations, both humorous and slightly edgy. It’s kind of fun to see cartoon style art next to more traditional monsters. This art direction choice allows for a gradual introduction to the more grown-up monster concept, with mind-cleansing silliness always just a page away.
Even though I was not the target audience for this book, I picked it up because it was just the type of book I was looking for as a kid. Its short chapters, filled with illustrations, make it a page turner. When I went to bed at night, I wanted something to fire my imagination, but not something that would give me nightmares. This book would have done the job.
I wanted to share it here for two reasons.
I don’t think this book is as well-known as other horror or monster-themed books that are making the rounds online. It certainly doesn’t help that, with its title matching a VERY popular D&D book, this is a hard one to search for.
In a world where older books like this are going through the roof price-wise, this title is still very accessible. I see copies of it online for as low as $2.
Books like this were often popular in libraries. Something to be pawed over while in school and discussed with friends on the bus ride home. Sadly for many, that was the extent of their exposure to the book, and it would live on only in vague memories. The more obscure the title, the less probable it will be made commercially available digitally, which is where this Monster Manual finds itself. Well, I am happy to say that a piece of your childhood is still out there in plentiful supply in old school print and is very easy to find. So do yourself a favor and pick one up for yourself or the young monster fan in your life.
I also would have loved this. In the late 70s there were quite a few kid-themed paranormal books available. My favorite first monster book was a Golden Books "fun book" sold in Department stores when they had book sections. It hits similar themes to this one - a transition from movie monsters to those that may be thought of as zoological (Bigfoot). And, we also had bookmobiles that gave kids free books. I always went for the creepy stuff. https://idoubtit.wordpress.com/2019/05/20/my-three-favorite-vintage-books-on-monsters-and-the-paranormal/
While this was after my time too, it would certainly have been I checked out from the school library had I been in school at the time. I love little gems like this.