Memento Monstrum

Once upon a time there was an elderly bat whose crafty wife forced him to spend time with his grandchildren. Having never really dealt with his own children, he found himself ill-equipped to deal with young bats. And so he did what what so many bats in his situation would do – he enthralled them. That is, he enthralled him with tales of his long past. And so begins the memoirs of Count Dracula, had Count Dracula been an old bat who was forced to spend time with his young heirs.

The tie-ins to myths and legends in Jochen Til’s Memento Monstrum are cute, leading us to believe that many of the stories we tell were merely mistakes and that the monsters they feature are just as fallible as the rest of us. Simple drawings accompany the text, though you won’t see anything as vibrant and appealing as the cover. Skip this as a read-aloud, but it is a good book for precocious readers looking for age suitable early chapter books.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was provided by the publisher.