Familiar fairy tales

A magical book

Unsuspecting heroes

Huge dollops of humour

Punctuated with peril

And a magnificent cast of weird and wonderful monsters

What I ask you is not to love?

Monster Hunting for Beginners is a rip roaring laugh out loud treasure trove of a book

Perfect for fans of How To Train Your Dragon and Land of Roar

Aimed at ages 8 – 800

This is the start of a brand new series

For lovers of myths, magic and monsters

Who like their humour served sharp!

Brilliantly written by Ian Mark

With fabulous fun illustrations by Louis Ghibault

My William age 11

Devoured this book the moment the proof arrived in the house

And has written this short review

(Anyone who knows my gorgeous Willliam

Will recognise him I think in the description of Jack!!!)

Monster Hunting For Beginners
Reviewed By William age 11

This Book is about a boy called Jack who is small for his age, has long hair and wears glasses.

Jack is living with his Dad who won’t let Jack watch horror films in case they gave him nightmares! And then Jack’s Dad goes missing and his Aunt Prudence come to live with him and then one day Jack goes out into the garden to find an Ogre preparing to eat Aunt Prudence. Jack kills the Ogre with his catapult, the only problem is that the Ogre topples over backwards onto Jack’s house. Then Jack meets a monster hunter called Stoop, who tells him it’s against the rules of monster hunting to kill monsters. Stoop also gives Jack a copy of a magic book called Monster Hunting For Beginners, which is an encyclopaedia of monsters. Jack decides to check the Ogres pockets for clues, but the Ogre had gone. Then Jack spots a piece of paper floating in the rubble and discovers it’s a map that shows that the Ogre went to King’s Nooze in Cornwall. To help them get to King’s Nooze quicker Stoop gives Jack a pair of 7 League Boots that take you 7 leagues (21 miles) in one stride, when they reach King’s Nooze they meet a girl called Nancy who tells them that there is an Ogre terrorizing the town and eating people…

… You’ll have to find out what the end of the story is for yourselves!

I really like Monster Hunting For Beginners because it’s really funny and my favourite quote is

“Being a Monster Hunter isn’t so bad” said Stoop, “The pay isn’t great and you’re at constant risk of death, which tends to put people off for some weird reason”

Here are 10 fascinating things I learnt from this book

1. Gibberish is a language spoken by Gibbers

2. Zomblings are zombies that look like babies and eat brains, but it’s not so bad living brainless,
lots of animals don’t have brains, like starfish and PE Teachers.

3. My favourite type of monster is the Crusted Hairy Snot Nibbler, which isn’t crusted or hairy
and it doesn’t nibble snot. One theory for its peculiar name is that it was named by someone
who didn’t know the meaning of the words crusted, hairy, nibble or snot!

4. A Category 5 emergency is when monsters have taken over the world and it could be the end
of civilization as we know it.

5. Anticores are manticores the size of ants.

6. Category 1 emergencies are unnoticeable and don’t deserve classification as an emergency.

7. Berserker Brew is a drink that turns you into an ogre if you’re less than 37% monster.

8. The way Monster Hunters get an apprentice is they give them a copy of Monster Hunting for
Beginners, receiving this book as a gift means you have officially accepted the job of being a
monster hunter.

9. Ogres can shape shift. Giants and trolls can’t

10. Ogres think children don’t exist and that they’re just stories to scare little Ogres into good
behaviour.

I would recommend this brilliant book to people age 6+ that like monsters and have a good sense of humour. I cannot wait for the second book in the series.

Monster Hunting for Beginners publishes on 2nd September 2021

Are you ready to be a monster hunter?