ReadItDaddy's First Book of the Week - Week Ending 5th October 2018: "Mary, Who Wrote Frankenstein" by Linda Bailey and Julia Sarda (Andersen Children's Books / Tundra Press)

This week's First Book of the Week made both our jaws drop through the floor the moment we clapped eyes on it...
If you're the sort of person who can't stand reviews that just heap on the praise, you might want to look away now.

*Psst, have they gone? Good, let's get on with the book love then!*

Quite simply, "Mary, Who Wrote Frankenstein" by Linda Bailey and Julia Sarda is one of the most stunning books we've seen this year, if not THE most stunning.

It could be that we're naturally biased towards 'darker' children's books, and it could also be because "Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus" is one of my favourite books of all time - but it's actually a combination of amazing elements in this story that make it proper book of the week material.

For starters, Linda's brilliant description of the early life of Mary Shelley is mesmerisingly good - and a truly fantastic introduction for children who may not even know who she is, but will undoubtedly be familiar with her most infamous creation.

If the cover doesn't win you over, then the first endpaper will knock your socks clean off!

Mary's mind wandered into the realms of fantasy at an early age, but it was during a stormy night staying in a rambling house near Geneva in Switzerland with her friends Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont, that Mary's masterwork, "Frankenstein" was born.

At the time Mary's idea began to turn into a novel, the world was ablaze with new scientific marvels including the electrical discoveries by Luigi Galvani some years earlier, seemingly bringing dead animals 'back to life' with electrical energy making their limbs twitch and move.

All these fed into her amazing and active imagination, enabling her to write what is arguably the most influential and most important novel in the science fiction genre.

Young Mary's mind was always full of a taste for the gothic and dark. 

It's very easy to be wowed instantly by Julia Sarda's illustrations for this book. We're huge fans of Julia's work, and she is absolutely the most brilliant choice of illustrator for a book that celebrates Mary Shelley's life and work in this way.

But huge credit must also go to Linda Bailey who has written an epic and engaging account of Mary's life, her explosively creative mind and her inspirations - all elements that would eventually feed into her writing. I'd go as far to say that this should accompany any set texts for kids who may be studying Frankenstein (as I did) as part of their English Studies.

Mary's novel spawned many, many successful movie adaptations, with Boris Karloff's turn as The Monster being the most memorable. 

It's blisteringly good, arriving in a year when we've seen many, many books about truly inspirational women in history (ironically, many of which feature Mary Shelley and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft - herself a writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights) in their midst.

But right here, within the exquisite covers of this book you'll find an intense and gloriously epic account of Mary herself. Arguably without her, the entire modern fantasy and science fiction genres would barely exist.

C's best bit: She started to fall completely in love with the idea of coming up with her own Ghost Stories after reading the account of Mary trying to think up scary tales for her friends during that stormy night.

Daddy's favourite bit: Stunning, the sort of picture book that gives us huge hope that some publishers are willing to take risks, indulge the darker side of life, and put their publishing might behind such astonishingly brilliant projects such as this. For a lifelong fan of "Frankenstein" this book has been absolutely amazing. Linda and Julia are a dream team and I sincerely hope they work together again soon!

"Mary, Who Wrote Frankenstein" by Linda Bailey and Julia Sarda is out now, published by Andersen Children's Books / Tundra Press (kindly supplied for review).