An official guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer describes the mythology and influences behind the monsters, ghouls, and characters through interviews with the creators and details of the episodes.

Monsters have been spotted everywhere, not just hiding under a child’s bed, lurking in the closet, or springing forth from folkloric tales. For many people, monsters are nothing more than myth, folklore, and legend combined. For others—and particularly those who have encountered monstrous forms surfacing and emerging from shadowy caves, from the dark waters of ancient lakes, and from the vast jungles and forests of our worlds—monsters are all too terrifyingly real. Werewolves, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra, Mothman, the Abominable Snowman, and sea serpents may represent the most famous monsters, but they are not alone. In fact, quite the opposite: monsters can be found all across the planet. Exploring the history, folklore, pop culture, and the world of the supernatural, The Monster Book: Creatures, Beasts, and Fiends of Nature is a comprehensive resource of the monster menagerie that exists on planet earth. This fascinating look at monsters has 120 photographs, drawings, and illustrations to bring the nearly 200 entries to life, including The Mongolian Death Worm; The Beast of Bray Road; The Owlman of England; The Yeren of China; Mokele Mbembe; Living Pterosaurs; The Flatwoods Monster; The Labynkyr Devil; Alien Big Cats; Lizard Man; Lake Worth Monster; The Beast of Gevaudan; Megalania, the Monstrous Monitor; South American Sasquatch; Nessie’s lesser known cousin; The Jersey Devil; Sea Serpents; Orang Pendek; and Phantom Black Dogs. Stories of these creatures are told around flickering campfires on chilly nights in the woods, before tucking excited kids into bed, on prime-time television documentaries, and on late-night radio talk shows. Tales of terrifying creatures that the world of science assures us don’t exist. But try telling that to the witnesses. This richly researched reference overflows with fascinating information to make readers think about—and reconsider—their next visit to the woods. This fascinating read also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness.

Enter an alternative world ruled by steam-powered machinery, Victorian elegance, and futuristic technology by creating your own elaborate manga characters in Steampunk, the latest volume in the bestselling Monster Book of Manga series. This easy-to-follow guidebook brings to life more than thirty avant-garde manga characters fit for a steampunk universe where fantasy, science, and history collide. Through advanced illustration techniques and step-by-step instructions, you'll learn how to easily transform rough sketches into intricately inked graphics, all adorned in clockwork motifs, rich colors, and Space Age attire. Characters include pirates, sci-fi soldiers, industrial aviators, witches, time travelers, robots, and vampires. Whether you're a novice or a skilled artist, The Monster Book of Manga: Steampunk is the definitive guide to creating your very own collection of steampunk manga characters.

This book is designed to help children to understand and articulate the emotions they might experience - feelings of anxiety and worry, pride, joy and excitement, sadness, anger and jealousy - and provides simple strategies for managing their mental health. Full of monster-themed stories, activities and downloadable worksheets, it is ideal to use individually or in group settings with ages 5-9. Children will meet characters like Thomas, the big purple monster who has a heavy backpack full of his worries, and Geronimo, who inconveniently creates small floods with his tears all around Icicle Island. The second part of the book is a detailed guide for adults with explanations of key concepts, support for delivering the activities, suggested discussion points and drama activities to consolidate learning.

This utterly absurd, wacky and weird compilation of the first three books in the Wiley & Grampa's Creature Features series is packed with monsters, mayhem, and pictures on every page! In the rip-roaring adventures, Wiley and goofy Grampa get mixed up with everything from vampires to zombies to a legendary sea monster and always manage to land in deep doodoo. Luckly, they have no-nonsense Gramma and a troop of neighborhood friends to swoop in and save the day! At over three hundred pages, this volume includes fan favorites Dracula vs. Grampa at the Monster Truck Spectacular, Grampa's Zombie BBQ, and Monster Fish Frenzy.

Sudoku has taken America by storm! Now kids can enjoy the puzzle that keeps their parents' minds racing and pencils sharpened. This edition, designed for children 8 and up, begins with a sudoku lesson from Will Shortz and very easy 4 x 4 grids to warm up. Then young solvers advance to more challenging 6 x 6 grids and finally tradition 9 x 9 sudoku puzzles. Features: · 150 all-new sudoku puzzles · Four difficulty levels including smaller "kid grids" · Fun commentary and illustrations · Edited by legendary New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz · Big grids with lots of space for easy solving

This writer's guide explains how to write short stories and horror fiction for children and adults. The author shows how to build on the initial idea and develop characters and plot. There are ideas for selecting and approaching publishers and information about contracts and publication.

In ancient China a monster called Taowu was known for both its vicious nature and its power to see the past and the future. Over the centuries Taowu underwent many incarnations until it became identifiable with history itself. Since the seventeenth century, fictive accounts of history have accommodated themselves to the monstrous nature of Taowu. Moving effortlessly across the entire twentieth-century literary landscape, David Der-wei Wang delineates the many meanings of Chinese violence and its literary manifestations. Taking into account the campaigns of violence and brutality that have rocked generations of Chinese—often in the name of enlightenment, rationality, and utopian plenitude—this book places its arguments along two related axes: history and representation, modernity and monstrosity. Wang considers modern Chinese history as a complex of geopolitical, ethnic, gendered, and personal articulations of bygone and ongoing events. His discussion ranges from the politics of decapitation to the poetics of suicide, and from the typology of hunger and starvation to the technology of crime and punishment.

An all original anthology from some of todays hottest supernatural writers, featuring stories of monsters from the monster's point of view. In most stories we get the perspective of the hero, the ordinary, the everyman, but we are all the hero of our own tale, and so it must be true for legions of monsters, from Lucifer to Mordred, from child-thieving fairies to Frankenstein's monster and the Wicked Witch of the West. From our point of view, they may very well be horrible, terrifying monstrosities, but of course they won't see themselves in the same light, and their point of view is what concerns us in these tales. Demons and goblins, dark gods and aliens, creatures of myth and legend, lurkers in darkness and beasts in human clothing...these are the subjects of The Monster's Corner. With contributions by Lauren Groff, Chelsea Cain, Simon R. Green, Sharyn McCrumb, Kelley Armstrong, David Liss, Kevin J. Anderson, Jonathan Maberry, and many others.

The simplicity of children's picture books--stories told with illustrations and a few well chosen words or none at all--makes them powerful tools for teaching morals and personal integrity. Children follow the story and see the characters' behaviors on the page and interpret them in the context of their own lives. But unlike many picture books, most children's lives don't feature monsters. This collection of new essays explores the societally sanctioned behaviors imparted to children through the use of monsters and supernatural characters. Topics include monsters as instructors, the normalization of strangers or the "other," fostering gender norms, and therapeutic monsters, among others.