By DK, Stephen Krensky
A big illustrated catalog of the mythical creatures people around the world have told stories about, one to a page.
Each spread gives one creature a big painted portrait, the story people tell about it, and a small map marking the part of the world it comes from. The creatures are grouped into sections a child can scan and pick a favorite from: Tricksters, Shape-Shifters, Almost Human, Creatures of the Deep, Winged Wonders. The dragon they came for is in here, and so are the Kraken, Anansi, and Baba Yaga, alongside a hundred more out of Japan, Nigeria, Mexico, and Iceland.
A child who's been dragon-obsessed for a year has usually run through the dragons and wants what's next. This is what's next, and there's a lot of it. What a single-topic book can't do, and this one does, is show that people on every continent looked at the dark and put something in it. Because it's one creature per page, it fits a child who reads in short bursts as well as one who'd go cover to cover.