Reviews

Lonely Planet Kids Spooky Stories of the World 1 by Wendy Shearer

dtaylorbooks's review

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adventurous funny informative lighthearted fast-paced

5.0

What a fun book! The art was fantastic, too!

SPOOKY STORIES OF THE WORLD is a great introduction to supernatural creatures from all over the world, making it a point to focus on each continent. It’s not like they skipped Europe. Of course not. But because I think our knowledge of the supernatural is very limited to European-centric creatures thanks to our media, it can be hard to know where to look for something outside of that bubble. Shearer does a great job of collecting a small sampling of creatures and tales and compiling them here.

Told in contexts that most children would understand, they get a short description of the creature, followed by a tale to put it into context. Most of the tales have some level of upbeat ending, but not all of them. Some endings are more neutral, and a couple are not all that positive. Such is life, and I think that message is delivered a little better in this more fictional context.

This is a great book to plant the seeds of knowledge in a kid’s head. They can start here, and then if something excites them, there are more than enough rabbit holes in while to tumble down. I don’t even have kids and I’ll be buying a copy of this book to keep on my shelves. I love what I learned from it and again, the art is wonderful!

5

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

nightwing's review

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medium-paced

4.25

Gorgeous illustrations, nice spooky (but not *too* spooky) stories for families! 
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