Frankenstein

Usborne Classics Retold

by John Grant (Adaptor), Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Original author), Usborne Publishing (Publisher)

-- Filled with adventure, excitement and suspense-- Action-packed illustrations help bring the stories to life

Genres: Childrens

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

John Grant is author of over eighty books, of which about twenty-five are fiction, including novels like The World, The Hundredfold Problem, The Far-Enough Window and most recently The Dragons of Manhattan and Leaving Fortusa. His “book-length fiction” Dragonhenge, illustrated by Bob Eggleton, was shortlisted for a Hugo Award in 2003; its successor was The Stardragons. His first story collection, Take No Prisoners, appeared in 2004. He is editor of the anthology New Writings in the Fantastic, which was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. His novellas The City in These Pages and The Lonely Hunter have appeared from PS Publishing.

His latest fiction book is Tell No Lies , his second story collection; it's published by Alchemy Press. His most recent nonfiction is A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir . Earlier, he coedited with John Clute The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and wrote in their entirety all three editions of The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters; both encyclopedias are standard reference works in their field. Among other recent nonfictions have been Discarded Science, Corrupted Science (a USA Today Book of the Year), Bogus Science and Denying Science.

As John Grant he has to date received two Hugo Awards, the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and a number of other international literary awards. He has written books under other names, even including his real one: as Paul Barnett, he has written a few books (like the space operas Strider’s Galaxy and Strider’s Universe) and for a number of years ran the world-famous fantasy-artbook imprint Paper Tiger, for this work earning a Chesley Award and a nomination for the World Fantasy Award.

Reviews

[Chelsea Hagen]

I liked this original story. I never knew that Frankenstein was made from a piece of Dr. Frankenstein's flesh.

[Lonneke Koijen]

I had to read it for school. It was a pretty good book and it was not boring to read. It was also not that big and alot of things happend. The plot was not so good tho and the end of the book also could have been better but overall it was pretty good!

[Aloj]

Ich wollte mal wieder etwas auf Englisch lesen, es sollte aber nicht zu schwer sein, also kann mir diese gekürzte Version von Frankenstein aus der Schulbibliothek gerade recht. Etwas schade allerdings, hätte ich das Original von Mary Shelley - immerhin eine der ersten Schriftstellerinnen überhaupt - auch gerne gelesen. Obendrein wusste ich kaum etwas über die Geschichte von Frankenstein und seiner Kreatur, um ehrlich zu sein, hab diese immer in einen Topf mit Dracula geworfen - kurzum ein popkulturelles Desaster.
Das Buch ist gut und einfach zu lesen. Ich fand jedoch manche Stellen im Buch sehr unlogisch und sprunghaft, tw falsch (Genf liegt doch nicht nördlich von Ingolstadt, ich checks nicht) oder etwas zu zaghaft beschrieben.
Immerhin hab ich eine meiner Bildungsslücken schließen können.

[Brex Arevalo]

This was a five star read for my 12-year-old self.

[Imogen Brown]

Perfect version of Frankenstein to read with my class. Challenging enough with the language but also gory and engaging for them. We loved it.

[Christopher Ouellette]

A very gory and fun retelling of the story

[Megan Fahy]

3.5 ⭐️

A gory retelling of the classic story of man vs monster and the consequences of playing God.

[K Jack]

Easy to read and lovely plot to follow

[Viana Jablecka]

men are dumb

[Frankie Spence]

Not as faithful a retelling as Tanya Landman’s version.

[Carmen Mathieu]

P37

[Sara]

in doubt
For my book project for English class, I have chosen the book Frankenstein written by Mary Shelly. The book is about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein, who decides to create life. He created a monster, what wasn’t his expectation, so he rejected it. After that, the monster wanted to take revenge on Victor and his family, because Victor left him alone. That is the beginning of lots of horrible actions to Victor’s family.

I have chosen the book, because I have already heard about the Frankenstein monster but I didn’t really know the story. This is why I have chosen the book. When I was in the library and I saw the cover of the book, I was in doubt, because the cover didn’t attract me at all. In spite of that, I took the book and gave it a chance. Also the book was very predictable, it is just a typically monster adventure and everyone knows the end, actually you don’t really have to read the entire book, to know the story. What I did like in the book, were the pictures. It was fun that now and then, there were some images, to clarify the story.

Personally, I didn’t really like the book. I like books with lots of action, or some adventure more and this book overall didn’t contain any of these things in it. For my friends, I would never recommend this book, but for people who like to read stories about monsters, this maybe a good book.

[Nallely And]

The novel Frankesntein is a suspenseful book. One of the main characters Victor Frankesntein is extremely in love with natural philosophy and science. His desires to take it beyond it aspire victor to aspire to recreate life. Mary Shelley makes the reader enjoy the suspense and horror. Throughout the book Victor fights against his creation the monster. The monster gets Victor where it will hurt him the most. Want to find out the end? Go ahead and read it. I recommend this book because it's suspenseful and very advance for the period of time it was written in.

[Felicity/Rosestar]

I thought that the frame story was pretty odd, but I loved Frankenstein's story! Especially when he let the monster speak!

[Claudias Orozco Ramirez]

This was a good book and very well written kept me interested. It's a must read classic!

[Kristi]

Completely different than what we have seen on T.V. Really surprised to find the original story of Frankenstein so different from my own understanding. A very sad tale. But glad I read it.

[Zane]

Dark story but good book!

[Slow Man]

How to read a classic without going through the ordeal of old language?
Usborne Classics Retold.

[Helen Mulligan]

Read with Year 6 class in DLG. Unearths some big ideas