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Memento Monstrum

 

Written by Jochen Till
Illustrated by Wiebke Rauers
Arctus, 2021. Fiction. 185 pages.

Originally published in German, Memento Monstrum is a memoir about the vampire bat, Dracula. He is stuck babysitting his three grandchildren and heā€™s not sure how he is going to entertain them. When the kids find his scrapbook spanning 589 years of his life, they find out the grandpa has a lot of cool stories to share. He recounts his time meeting a ballerina yeti, an invisible secret agent, and a Rockstar werewolf and becoming great friends with all of them. He also shares how he outsmarted and escaped from the vampire hunter, Van Helsing many, many times. Just the cover art alone is the kind that makes you want to take this book off of the shelf. There are lovely full color illustrations scattered throughout the book and the stories Vlad Dracula tells actually had me laughing out loud. 


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