Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
There are a couple of picturebook biographies of Mary Shelley, each describing the night she conceived her monster.* But those stories are too simplistic. Judge's book dives more thoroughly into Shelley's life and in doing so, reveals how the accumulation of loves and tragedies helped in the shaping of her influential novel. The story is made even more powerful by the use of free verse and darkly emotive drawings.
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*The picturebooks mentioned are She Made a Monster, by Lynn Fulton, which uses fiction to further dramatize events, and Mary, Who Wrote Frankenstein, by Linda Bailey. Bailey uses her author's note to include more details about Shelley's life and the night in question. The illustrations are scarier too, making this the better book.
