A Taste for Monsters – Mom Read It

Who doesn’t love a good mashup? It can be Darth Vader riding an AT-AT a la Napoleon (it exists, and I have it on a shirt) or Sherlock Holmes meeting The Doctor, or it can be Loki sitting on an Iron Throne made of everything he took from the Avengers; mashups are just fun ways of bringing some of your favorite characters and fandoms, that may otherwise never meet, together.

Ript Apparel, supplier of many of my geeky tees, offered this shirt in 2012.

So tonight, when I was going through old e-mails, imagine my surprise when I came across an email from Sarah Reida, author of Monsterville, telling me that she co-authored a middle grade mashup with Claire Fayers, author of Voyage to Magical North. (And then imagine my mortification when I saw that the email was 2 months old. I have got to go back to my old “keep your inbox as to-do list” mentality; filing emails is just not working for me.)

Image courtesy of The Children’s Book Review

How cool is this? It’s a mashup of two great middle grade novels that I read and enjoyed this year, and it’s something I can share with my library kiddos! Follow That Island! is available on the Children’s Book Review website and is a fun little side adventure, conveniently available as a downloadable PDF; at 16 pages, it’s a perfect quick read, a tease for kids who are waiting for a sequel to Monsterville, or who have just finished Voyage to Magical North and Journey to Magical Island, and aren’t ready to let the adventure end. I’ll be introducing this to my group for Summer Reading in the next couple of weeks – I’m trying out a writer’s workshop, where I’ll illustrate different types of storytelling, and the mashup will fit perfectly into one of my sessions. Hope you and yours enjoy it as much as I do.

A Taste for Monsters, by Matthew J. Kirby, (Sept. 2016, Scholastic), $18.99, ISBN: 9780545817844

Recommended for ages 12+

Evelyn is a young woman left to fend for herself on the streets of Victorian London’s infamous East End. Orphaned and disfigured by her work in a matchstick factory, she seemingly has few prospects; she applies to London Hospital as a nurse, and is instead assigned to be the maid to the hospital’s most famous patient: Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. As she attends to Merrick, she finds a gentle, beautiful soul with whom she shares a love of Jane Austen, easy conversation, and sadly, pain.

And then the ghosts come. They visit nightly, terrifying Merrick and Evelyn, who stays with him to support him through the nightly terrors. Evelyn discovers that the ghosts are the restless spirits of women murdered by Jack the Ripper, whose work makes gruesome headlines. Evelyn takes it upon herself to help these spirits find peace so that they’ll leave Joseph alone, but are they really haunting him? And is Evelyn putting herself in the Ripper’s sights by getting involved?

This is my third Kirby book, and it’s safe to say I am hooked on his writing. His historical fiction places you right in the middle of the action, and his fantastic elements are so believable – especially in an age where spiritualists ran wild – that I had no problem believing that ghosts existed and sought out the kindness of a gentle man like Joseph Merrick. The character development is brilliant and complex; the characters had a depth to them that made we want to sit with them and share tea and conversation. There’s a thread of tension running through the book that will keep readers turning pages, whether it’s the tension between Evelyn and several key supporting characters in the novel, the tension of waiting for the spirits to arrive, and the gripping conclusion. Historical fiction fans that appreciate a touch of the supernatural will love this book; readers interested in the Jack the Ripper story or the Elephant Man will love this book. Conservative readers may shy away from some of the gory descriptions of the Ripper’s victims as read from the newspapers and sideshow attractions. There’s some excellent YA Ripper-related fiction available, including Maureen Johnson’s The Name of the Star; the graphic novel From Hell is another great booktalking and display choice. There is a children’s picture book about The Elephant Man by Mariangela Di Fiore that would be a good display choice. Get this book on your shelves and into hands.

Matthew J. Kirby is an Edgar Award-winning novelist.

Tag: A Taste for Monsters

Mashup Mania! Monsterville meets the Accidental Pirates!

Ript Apparel, supplier of many of my geeky tees, offered this shirt in 2012.

What makes a monster? Matthew J. Kirby explores in A Taste for Monsters