North Star Edition’s Genius Kid’s series offers readers of grades 3-9 fun and informative books on a wide variety of topics. Each book in the series contains vast amounts of information on a particular subject - including fun facts and trivia with which they can immerse themselves in knowledge, and impress their friends (or at least their parents!).

Genius Kid’s Guide to Mythical Creatures by Sara Novak (North Star Editions, 2023) is a thorough guide to the world of imaginary creatures. Every page contains beautiful full-color images that complement the text, as well as small boxes of trivia that the reader can then share with friends, or use in school projects.

Creatures from myth, legend, and the pages of cryptozoology fill the book. From Bigfoot to Vampires, the reader will learn about their lore. Some creatures like the Kraken have a firm grounding in scientific fact - Giant Squids and Colossal Squids have been discovered by scientists - while others, such as Unicorns, are more important for their symbolism. The book treats each creature with respect, analyzing their place in history, culture, and common attributes and ways to identify them.

This book is a quick read, and a fun reference for any creative and curious child. The book whets the appetite by providing a broad view of the creatures that fill our modern media and information about where they came from. The book is sure to delight and would find pride of place in any school library.

I enjoyed this book. I loved the details, the history, the lore that was presented. There were a few that are not normally included in books like this. Illustrations were plentiful. Some of the information was a bit repetitive, but overall, this was entertaining.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley, and this is my unsolicited review.

The Genius Kid's Guide to Mythical Creatures by Sara Novak is currently scheduled for release on May 2 2023. From beautiful mermaids and gentle unicorns to fire-breathing dragons and bloodthirsty vampires, mysterious beings and magical beasts appear in stories told all around the world. The Genius Kid’s Guide to Mythical Creatures highlights 20 of these legendary beings, detailing each creature’s appearance and behavior, as well as where and how legends about it began. The text also explores how the stories have changed and developed over time. Readers learn everything they need to know about their favorite myths and monsters, as well as plenty of fun trivia to impress their friends.

The Genius Kid's Guide to Mythical Creatures offers readers some basic information about cryptids and creatures of legend. The information was all in line with what I have read and seen elsewhere- so I think readers that have already done some reading on the subject will not find much that is new to them, but those that have not broached the topic yet will get a good foundation on the creatures covered. I was more than a little disappointed that most, if not all, of the images were from shutterstock. I would have liked to see more effort put into that aspect of the book. I did appreciate the endmatter, the glossary and resource list at the end were a nice addition to the book. Although, I was expecting some kind of quiz in here somewhere, but perhaps they were in the sections of the galley that had some formatting issues, which I fully expect to be fixed prior to the publication.

My niece and I have a strong taste for fantasy so when this book was offered up for an ARC review I thought both of us would most definitely enjoy this book. Although I am not sure if she has had a chance to read it I must say I am a bit disappointed so far by its contents.

The <i>Table of Contents</i> reads like any book that may have come out early 1990s with your more normal fare of cryptids like chupacabra, bigfoot and sea serpents combined with the more basic fantastical elements that everyone already pretty much knows about - fairy folk (fairies, dwarves, gnomes), mermaids, centaurs, vampires, werewolves. When compared to the amount of fantastical creatures that have been introduced through the <Percy Jackson> series, the <Harry Potter> series, the <i>LOTR<i> series and even the dying classical <i>The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe</i> series this is really a gross oversight that I cannot forgive too lightly.

Furthermore all the illustrations in the book are taken from stock photos and as such have stock marks on them. Furthermore since the concept I believe was to represent as many possible diverse depictions of these creatures there wasn't even a common element in the majority of the depictions for readers, which is a shame as well.

Otherwise I must say that the author does a great job in at least presenting more "types" within each entry, though, when there are any such as comparing the Oriental dragon versus the western dragon or even mentioning the Yowies and Yetis (Almas) for bigfoot. At least this way children who are learning about these creatures for a first time are getting something fairly new.

The rest of the book itself though is broken-down into looking like you are reading an actual tome with a blue ribbon bookmark on each page. This bookmark after the original presentation includes the creature's name on it in the section just in case you forgot what you are reading. Furthermore each entry starts off with a small fictional entry to live some background story to introduce you to the creature before exploring how the legend was spread, the traits of the creature, their behavior and in some cases what may be the reason behind their possible existence in human mind.

Due to the captions, the <i>Fun Facts</i> and the <i>Story Spotlight</i> there was a bit too much also repetitive information that just bleeds back into annoying me with this work. And as such I would be doing the world of children and fantasy fans a disservice to recommend this bland book to
readers who need to be thrilled and not bored.

**I received a free copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the copy in exchange for a review.

This was a fun guide to magical and mythical creatures and I would have loved this when I was younger. I love reading nonfiction about the myths and where they all came from and this book does a great job of compiling them in an easy-to-read format so kids and adults alike would enjoy reading this book. I loved the inclusion of pictures and the fun facts scattered throughout the book.

There were some formatting issues with the pictures in the copy I received and I was not sure if that was something that needed to be changed about the e-copy of this book

This is a factoid book full of legends and folklore of mythical creatures we've all grown up hearing and reading about. From Bigfoot to dragons to mermaids to unicorns to werewolves and so many in between, this fun book is sure to keep your imaginative and inquisitive reader busy learning.

Thank you, NetGalley and North Star Editions, for allowing me to receive and review an advance readers copy of The Genius Kid's Guide to Mythical Creatures.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This was a fun read! I liked the various pictures and drawings of each mythical creature and how each is different yet similar. The fun facts and story spotlights was fun to read as well. My kids will definitely enjoy reading this book!

The Genius Kid's Guide to Mythical Creatures is a comprehensive book diving into the world of mythical creatures. I read this with my 9yo and we enjoyed identifying mythical creatures we had heard of and those we had not. The book is laid out thoughtfully, with lots of sketches and photographs alongside accessible text. Each section gives information about the mythical creature including where the legend may have originated, appearance and traits, and other similar folklore from around the globe.

The glossary and additional resource list at the end were good additions. We did feel the general design and appearance of the book is somewhat dated and not very engaging. We felt it could have been designed to be far more attractive. My daughter also pointed out that the front cover asks if the reader is ready to be tested. From this, she anticipated there would be quizzes included and disappointed to find there weren't any.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.