A lovely book that tells the true story of how the classic Universal Studios Monsters were born from a centenarian who was there when it happened. Enjoy Carla's tale of growing up on her uncles Universal Studio Lot from 1921 to 1937 and not only witnessing the filming of such early classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, but actually being in The Phantom of the Opera in 1925 and Dracula in 1931, where her "bit" part was that of having the first line of spoken dialogue in that perennial classic vampire film. Beware of vampires and hearses, but enjoy her story's verses! Wonderfully illustrated by MAD Magazines Jack Davis and Hermann Mejia. Foreword provided by master of horror and sci-fi, Ray Bradbury.

Everyone has a sneaking fascination for weird plants that don't behave like ordinary plants. This fascinating book shows how to grow some of them and see for yourself what they do. From cucumbers that shoot seeds and cabbages that grow into walking sticks, to venus fly traps that eat insects and giant echiums that look like alien spaceships, these are plants that will amaze - and they are so easy to grow. Detailed instructions on how to sow and look after these monsters of the plant world accompany step-by-step illustrations and fabulous photos of the mature plants to inspire anyone who can't resist getting to know them better. And some of the plants can be grown on patios or window sills too. Plants included: squirting cucumber, voodoo lily, Abyssinian banana, cardoon, walking stick cabbage, venus fly trap, pitcher plant, giant echium and lychee

Discusses such creatures as Bigfoot, the Demon Cat, and Mothman which, though never proven, are said to exist in the United States.

Like Anne Frank, Hilde Jacobsthal was born in Germany and brought up in Amsterdam, where the two families became close. Unlike Anne Frank, she survived the war, and Otto Frank was to become godfather to Rita, her first daughter. "I am the child of a woman who survived the Holocaust not by the skin of her teeth but heroically. This book tells the story of my mother's dramatic life before, during and after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. "I wrote Motherland because I wanted to understand a story which had become a kind of family myth. My mother's life could be seen as a narrative of the twentieth century; along with my father she was present and active at many of its significant moments." Rita Goldberg Hilde Jacobsthal was fifteen when the Nazis invaded Holland. After the arrest of her parents in 1943 she fled to Belgium, where she went into hiding and worked with the Resistance at night. She was liberated by the American army in 1944. In April 1945 she volunteered with a British Red Cross Unit to go to the relief of Bergen-Belsen, which had itself been liberated one week before her arrival. The horror and devastation were overwhelming, but despite her shock and grief she stayed at the camp for two years, helping with the enormous task of recovery. Sorrow and exuberance went hand in hand as the young people at Belsen found renewed life and each other. Hilde got to know Hanns Alexander (subject of the recently published Hanns and Rudolf), who was on the British War Crimes Commission, and, eventually, a Swiss doctor called Max Goldberg. Motherland is the culmination of a lifetime of reflection and a decade of research. Rita Goldberg enlarges the story she heard from her mother with historical background. She has talked with her about the minutest details of her life and pored over her papers, exploring not only her mother's life but her own. Complicated feelings are explored lightly as Rita takes the story beyond Bergen-Belsen, where paradoxically her parents met and fell in love; beyond Israel's War of Independence where they both volunteered, and on to the next chapter of their lives in the US. A deeply moving story, Motherland will become an essential text about World War II, the Holocaust and the survival of the spirit.

“Grab a flashlight and burrow under the covers! Spark and the League of Ursus is the perfect bedtime adventure, with a fierce, fluffy hero you'll want by your side when the lights go out.”—Kirsten Miller, New York Times bestselling co-author of Nightmares! Toy Story meets Stranger Things in this epic tale of warrior teddy bears and the children they protect. Spark is not your average teddy bear. She’s soft and cuddly, sure, but she’s also a fierce warrior. At night she fulfills her sacred duty: to protect the household from monsters. But Spark’s owner Loretta is growing up and thinks she doesn’t need her old teddy anymore. When a monster unlike any other descends on the quiet home, everything changes. Children are going missing, and the monster wants Loretta next. Only Spark can stop it. She must call upon the ancient League of Ursus—a secret alliance of teddy bears who are pledged to protect their human friends. Together with an Amazon-princess doll and a timid sock monkey, the bears are all that stands between our world and the one that lies beneath. It will be a heroic chapter in the history of the League . . . if the bears live to tell the tale. The adventure continues in Spark and the Grand Sleuth

Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge.

Flossie, a baby Muppet monster, is reluctant at first to accept her babysitter, until she and her brother find out how much fun they can have with her.