Customer Reviews

Fantasy Encyclopedia

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is okay, but there could have been a little more information in it on (the pictures are huge and take up most of the page space). That being said, the artwork is great, but it doesn't compare to books like the Spiderwick Field Guide and Dragonology. If you're looking for something a little more complete, and something that is worth 25 dollars, don't buy this book.

This book is spectacular! With color pictures on every page, it illustrates nearly every creature of fantasy imaginable, from the Baba Yaga to the Cockatrice. Kids and adults of all ages will treasure this book.

Fantasy Encyclopedia
by Judy Allen

Fantasy Encyclopedia is meant for Grades 4-8 students and library use. You'd expect a full-color large-format fantasy encyclopedia to be a wonderful library edition. But this book is disappointing in its scope and in its depth. The book is a guide to the creatures and peoples of fantasy, mythology, and folklore. Over 50 character types are covered in 9 chapters.

The chapters cover "The Little People," "Mysterious Animals," "Ghosts and Spirits," etc. Each major section in a chapter has a few introductory paragraphs followed by illustrations with captions. This by itself is not so bad, but the book then adds plugs for popular movies and books in which the creatures appeared. So you get disgenuine references to Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. You don't get a real feel for how these creatures are used in fantasy. You do get the sense that references to Narnia, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings are placements. A more thorough treatment of the subject would have included much more detail and a better cross section with much better sampling.

Hopefully a revised and significantly expanded edition is in the works.

This lovely and informative book describes all kinds of creatures found in fantasy literature. It has beautiful pictures and tells when the creatures "came into being" (first seen in art, books, etc.) attributes, powers, folklore, etc. For many creatures, it lists books they have appeared in, which is very useful for locating other fantasy books to read. This book appeals to many ages from about 4th or 5th grade and up. My high school aged daughter loves it.

This book has beauitful pictures, great amount of information that is easy to understand and read. I highly recommend this book to every and any fantasy fan! Myself, I've been looking for this type of book for a long time but never knew what to search to find it. One day I got the idea to type in my search "Fantasy Encyclopedia" and that is when I found this book.

Recommended to my friend and now she has a copy too! Well worth it.

If you love mythology/fantasy, then you're going to love this book. It makes it sound like these creatures actually do exist, and I know it has helped me. It has helped me with school, understanding TV and other books, and it has also helped me write my own stories. This is a really great book! I reread it all the time. This is the most relieable of all fantasy encyclopedias I have!

This book was really nice. It had wonderful color pictures, and information on so many different things, with little notes and extra information all over the page. It's a good book if you want general information on all kinds of different fantasy creatures. Not only does it have mermaids and unicorns, but it also has vampires, mummies, and the phoenix and so much more! I was really glad I got it.

Presumably this is aimed at children as a brief overview. Mostly a waste of time for anyone that knows anything about the topic, other than as a quick browse, or a chance to pick up a different creature, beastie, or monster. So this is much more in the vein of a picture book for kids, as far as I can tell.

I have to say the book itself is gorgeous, but the content is not a 5 star. If I were going to judge the book solely on it's artwork then by all means 5 stars from me, but content wise, it gets a 4. It is a good reference book, mostly almost like a list of paranormal creatures found in mythology. The description of each creature is very brief, a short paragraph at best. However, this is a good starting point for those looking for creatures to start looking up in depth and read about. The one thing I didn't really appreciate from the note in the beginning of this book by the author is that it was almost seemingly written from a skeptic's point of view. It started with her saying that as a child she believed in the creatures in this book, but they can still be real in the imagination of the readers of the book. Now, I can see what she meant by this, but the book itself for me seemed like it was written in a format that says in mythology dragons are blah, blah, blah, but heck we all know they don't exist, so go watch some Harry Potter action to see them live. I think that this is always a bad move for a writer to take on a point of view, because for me it puts me off of really reading the text. I would've loved it to be written sort of matter-of-factly. I mean no, we don't go to the zoo to see dragons as they aren't real in that aspect, but to some cultures they are very much alive in symbolism and mythology. Believing should really be left up to the reader-- as in how much of the stories they want to believe and whether or not they think Bigfoot is a real creature.With all of that being said, it's still a good book, but I would ditch the skeptic point of view and the little references to Harry Potter, LOTR and the likes.

I bought this book after having checked it out of our local public library. The entries are (of necessity) brief, but that is just what I am looking for. I am a budding fantasy writer and the book gives just enough information to whet the appetite.