Frightlopedia by Julie Winterbottom

Title: Frightlopedia: An Encyclopedia of Everything Scary, Creepy, and Spine-Chilling, From Arachnids to Zombies

Author: Julie Winterbottom

Illustrator: Stefano Tambellini

Here’s the book for kids who love scary stuff, whether it’s telling ghost stories around a campfire, discovering the origins of various vampires, monsters, and witches, or reading creepy tales under the covers with a flashlight.

Combining fact, fiction, and hands-on activities, Frightlopedia is an illustrated A-Z collection of some of the world’s most frightening places, scariest stories, and gruesomest creatures, both real and imagined.

Discover Borneo’s Gomantong Cave, where literally millions of bats, cockroaches, spiders, and rats coexist—in pitch darkness. Learn about mythical creatures like the Mongolian Death Worm—and scarily real ones like killer bees, which were accidentally created by scientists in the 1950s. Visit New Orleans’s Beauregard-Keyes house, where Civil War soldiers are said to still clash in the front hall. Plus ghost stories from around the world, a cross-cultural study of vampires, and how to transform into a zombie with makeup. Each entry includes a “Fright Meter” measurement from 1 to 3, because while being scared is fun, everyone has their limit.

I'm a huge fan of scary things.  I love scary books and movies! So when I received this book in the mail for review I was really excited about it.  I did wonder how it would be for kids though.  First what did I think of it - I loved it!  The book takes you through the alphabet of creepy, scary, odd things.  I was impressed they actually had something for each letter!  My favorites were the Manchineel tree (I'm staying clear of that one!) and Island of the Dolls (also staying clear of!).  The letter G was great too looking at different ghosts.  And of course I liked Z with zombies.  I found the pieces informative and well written.  They gave details without pushing the gore or scare.  What was really cool was that each topic has a Fright Meter telling you how scary this topic might be.  I thought this would be great for kids reading the book.  Now about kids reading it - many of the topics are ones you'd see in other books - spiders, bats, rats - those types of things, so I don't think those would be an issue.  Some of the ghost stories might be hard for kids who scare easily, so I would caution them.

Over all - I enjoyed it! 

Like to learn about different topics

Can handle a scare

Enjoy nonfiction/informative text