Dragons & Monsters - Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda

Summary: Lurking behind this intriguing cover, a Kraken grapples with a ship on the high seas; dragons from Eastern and Western traditions spring to life; and a Medusa, snake-hair twisting and hissing, turns the reader to stone. Deeper inside, an ancient, decrepit vampire rises from his coffin; a lycanthrope is caught in the light of the full moon and transforms; and Bigfoot hides behind a tree, ducking his human pursuer. Master paper engineers Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda unfold the legends and lore of cultures around the world to reveal these stunning creatures and many more. Pop-up fans and fantasy lovers will be equally enthralled by the dynamic creatures depicted in this astonishing volume, the climax of the Encyclopedia Mythologica trilogy. 

In a breathtaking grand finale, the world’s mythical pop-up masters unleash monsters and dragons that have prowled countrysides and imaginations for centuries. (image and summary from goodreads.com)

My Review: I love monsters.

I'm always drawing them, writing stories about them, telling people about them, and they're like, 'why are you drawing creepy things?' and 'who are you and why are you telling me about kappas?'

This book is chalk-full of monsters, and in all their three dimensional glory.  We get ancient beasts like Medusa, giants, and centaurs, European dragons, Eastern dragons, sea monsters, vampires, werewolves, yetis and Loch Ness Monsters.  So, for someone who loves monsters as much as I do, this book is a real treat.

We get a taste of these different monsters from around the world, and Reinhart fills us in on all the details and history, while Sabuda gives us a visual with his marvelous pop ups.

The great thing with this pop-up book, as with other Sabuda books I've read, is he doesn't stop with just one pop-up per page--there are separate little mini booklets within each page that expand on different monsters, and some have multiple pop-ups within this one little booklet, and some pages have multiple of these.

And Sabuda's pop-ups aren't your run of the mill pop-ups, they are truly these intricate works of art.  I mean, just look at the Eastern Dragon page:

(image from Matthew Reinhart's website)

This book is absolutely a must if you love pop-ups or monsters, or, if you're like me, both.  

My Rating: 5 Stars

For the sensitive reader: discussions of monsters, which includes some scary imagery and content where monsters are concerned.