Legendary Creatures: Mythical Beasts and Spirits from Around the World

by Adam Auerbach

Overview

A vibrantly illustrated, imaginative picture book featuring mythological creatures drawn from diverse cultural traditions. 

From the vicious three-headed Chimera of ancient Greece to the peaceful Navagunjara of India— a creature made from parts from nine different animals—to the awe-inspiring dragons of Europe and East Asia, this exciting introduction to mythological creatures celebrates the wondrous beings featured in stories from all over the world. Including a vast array of fierce monsters, powerful spirits, ancient gods, and helpful beasts, Legendary Creatures is the perfect primer to engage young readers interested in the fascinating world of mythology. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316331876
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	09/20/2022
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	627,592
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 12.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	4 - 9 Years

About the Author

Adam Auerbach is the creator of The Three Vikings, Monkey Brother, and Edda: A Little Valkyrie's First Day of School, which was named an Ezra Jack Keats Honor Book. Adam's illustrations have appeared on book covers and in numerous print publications, including the New York Times and School Library Journal. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Legendary Creatures:
An Amazon Best Book of the Month

"This is a book for nerds, in the most praiseworthy sense of that statement. Bookish kiddos will delight in poring over each fact and anecdote in the pages…. The stories are highlighted through simple, colorful illustrations in dreamy watercolor and ink…. A fantastical feast for the brain and eyes."—SLJ

"A gallery of strange creatures of lore, from dragons to eaters of gold and dreams....young monster hunters may find some fresh quarry."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

10/01/2022

Gr 2–4—This is a book for nerds, in the most praiseworthy sense of that statement. Bookish kiddos will delight in poring over each fact and anecdote in the pages. Auerbach packs a huge volume of legends in a little bit of space and does it all with an admirable global outlook. The creatures represent a worldwide view, with mythological selections from Korea, Polynesia, Scandinavia, and countless other corners of the world. The creatures are organized alphabetically, and each page contains short snippets of origin stories and exciting moments behind the legendary tales, condensed for quick comprehension. Readers can spend hours flipping through histories or sample a page or two during shorter periods. The bold headings and paragraphs, which max out at about three per creature, help make the information more digestible. The stories are highlighted through simple, colorful, and culturally respectful illustrations in dreamy watercolor and ink. It makes for a fantastical feast for the brain and eyes. VERDICT A perfect afternoon distraction for daydreamers or worldbuilding fantasy writers.—Cat McCarrey

School Library Journal

2022-05-25
A gallery of strange creatures of lore, from dragons to eaters of gold and dreams.

Capped by a sinuous dragon on a double gatefold, Auerbach’s translucently hued figures are more graceful than fearsome, but the chimerical ones—particularly the scorpion-tailed Girtablilu people drawn from the epic of Gilgamesh and the Mahabharata’s Navagunjara, made up of parts of nine creatures—are appealingly bizarre. His 20 alphabetized selections, which span the globe, include unicorns, griffins, the golem, merfolk of several varieties, a benign nightmare eater from Japan, a Chilean bird that consumes precious metals, the wildlife-protecting Mimi of Arnhem Land, and Te Ika-a-Māui, a truly large fish that became New Zealand’s entire North Island. The visuals have to carry the load here, however, since despite appending brief references to older sources of information about each entry in a closing section, all that he offers to accompany the pictures are a few perfunctory descriptive notes or explicated legends drawn, to judge from the booklist at the end, from secondary sources. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

More eye candy than reference tool, but young monster hunters may find some fresh quarry. (Informational picture book. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews