On a stormy night 200 years ago, a young woman sat in a dark house and dreamed of becoming a writer like her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, but young Mary Shelley had yet to be inspired. The next day was the deadline that her friend, the poet Lord Byron, had set for writing the best ghost story. Mary had gone to bed exhausted and frustrated that nothing she could think of was scary enough, but that night she dreamed of a frightful creation, which she immortalized in her classic novel, Frankenstein. There's plenty of inspiration for mature readers 7 and up in this tale, while Felicita Sala's rather gothic watercolor, ink, and colored pencil illustrations are absolutely masterful.