Monster Museum-Hitchck

by Alfred Hitchcock

Book Overview

Near Fine First Edition 1965 This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394848993
• ISBN13: 9780394848990
• Release Date: February 1982
• Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Length: 213 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.9" x 11.9"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

An all-time favorite

Not all of the monster stories in this book are memorable but some really were. I first read this book when I was a teenager and am so grateful for modern technology that allows a way to not only find a copy, but to purchase one, since it no longer seems to be in print. My very favorite short stories in this really cool compilation are The Young One, Day of the Dragon, and Slime. I noticed another reviewer did not appreciate The Young One as much as I did. Sure, it's about werewolves and werewolves have been done a million times in books and movies, but the sociological twist is an added layer of depth that makes the story a little more unique. Very believable and pretty cool. Slime really does seem to be the basis of the cult classic "The Blob". I can't wait to research a little more and see if everyone is right about that one. Back then, it was a pretty unique idea for a monster and still today, a fascinating read. Day of the Dragon reads a bit like one of those old 1950's nuclear age monster movies but what a great imagination the author had. It's simply not a tiring story. And that can be said of the book. It simply never gets tiring with age. Like all well-written and well-imagined stories, the thrill just continues to live on through the decades. What a great, old-fashioned, and still downright fun way to spend an afternoon- reading really vivid monster stories.

Fond memories of this one...

I read this back in 2004 as an eigth grader and have not seen it elsewhere since, so forgive my shady memory of this book. This collection is not perfect--there were a few stories here that were either unoriginal or just downright uninvolving, such as "The Young One", which was a rather cliched (though far from terrible) werewolf story, and "Henry Martindale, Great Dane", a story about a man who mysteriously transforms into a dog (this idea may have been novel and cute when the short was first published, today it's been done to death). There were some great works here though: "Slime", by Joseph Payne Brennan is easily the best story in the whole collection, about an ancient blob-like organism that is accidently brought ashore by seismic (sp?) activity and then proceeds to make a meal out of anything in its path--people included. I wonder if this story inspired the 1958 classic monster movie, "The Blob", and it's two remakes? Another one I loved, that unfortunately I have a hard time remembering, was "Day of the Dragon", about a scientist who's experiments on alligators lead to a horrifying discovery that threatens to end mandkind. Another story, perhaps the most original of them all, was "The Microscopic Giants", a story about a race of tiny beings evolved to live in the arteries of the earth, who happen to have some pretty scary technology at their disposal. I'm afraid I don't remember the other stories, but I most certainly recommend this collection--I'll have to read it again in the future.