Lynn Fulton

Moody watercolor, ink, and colored pencil illustrations set the "it was a dark and stormy night" tone of this book, an origin story of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It is not a full biography of Mary Shelley, nor does it tell the whole story of Frankenstein - some background may be helpful - but it stands firmly on its own, with a healthy dose of feminism (Shelley's mother was Mary Wollstonecraft).

Quotes

They only asked if something could be done - never if it should.

Creepy. But the style is lovely at the same time.

Full of dark and dreary (but perfectly suited!) illustrations, She Made a Monster gives life to Mary Shelley's vivid imagination and the results of it. Most kids have heard of Frankenstein, but not many know that it was actually written by a woman. This book does a great job of showing how Mary Shelley came up with the idea for her famous story. This is a really fun, October read!

There’s a lot to like in this book, if you already know the rest of the story. There are nice phrases and great illustrations. Child readers are likely to have only a cartoonish, generalized perception of what Frankenstein’s monster is, not the deeper questions of humanity that the novel asks. Once again, it would be a better book if the back matter was incorporated into the text.