The Girl Who Builds Monsters

The Girl Who Builds Monsters
written by Brian James Freeman
illustrations by Vincent Chong

About the Book:
Emma is quiet, and often lonely, because the birthmark on her face scares the other kids in town. She lives with her kindly grandfather, who owns a factory where he creates the most beautiful dolls in the world.

One day while exploring the factory, Emma discovers a forgotten workbench and some wooden crates. Inside the crates are broken pieces of machinery and rejected doll parts, which Emma begins to assemble into dolls of her own design. They are very different from the dolls her grandfather makes, but Emma says this is what makes them special.

Emma loves her dolls, and she has no idea how much they love her back, but when two burglars sneak into the cottage where Emma and her grandfather are fast asleep, her new monster dolls will prove exactly how special they really are…

Featuring a timeless story by Brian James Freeman and beautiful full-color artwork by Vincent Chong, The Girl Who Builds Monsters is a tale for all ages.

NOTE FOR COLLECTORS:
The Signed & Slipcased Hardcover Limited Edition and the Signed & Traycased Hardcover Lettered Edition include a 32 page bonus section after the story that takes you "behind the scenes" of the writing and illustrating of the story with author and artists notes, conceptual art, sketches, and more!

Published as a Trade Hardcover Edition:
• Printed on acid-free paper
• Bound in the popular "paper-on-boards" style with the full-color artwork printed on the binding
• Featuring full-color endpapers
• Smyth sewn to create a more durable binding
• Wrapped in a full-color dust jacket
• Retail price just $19

Published as a Signed & Slipcased Hardcover Limited Edition:
• Limited to just 500 signed, numbered, and slipcased copies
• Signed by the author and artist on a full-color signature page
• Printed on acid-free paper
• Bound in full-cloth with colored head and tail bands
• Featuring hot foil stamping on the front boards and spine
• Includes a sewn-in satin ribbon page marker
• Printed and bound with stylish endpapers
• Smyth sewn to create a more durable binding
• Wrapped in a full-color dust jacket with a variant color scheme
• Includes exclusive "Behind the Scenes" bonus material
• Limited ONE TIME printing of this special edition
• Retail price $75

Published as a Signed & Traycased Hardcover Lettered Edition:
• Limited to just 52 signed and lettered copies
• Signed by the author and artist on a full-color signature page
• Printed on 60# acid-free paper
• Bound in leather with colored head and tail bands
• Featuring hot foil stamping on the front boards and spine
• Includes a sewn-in satin ribbon page marker
• Printed and bound with full-color endpapers
• Smyth sewn to create a more durable binding
• Includes exclusive "Behind the Scenes" bonus material
• housed in a custom-made traycase
• Limited ONE TIME printing of this special edition
• Retail price $200

"There is so much to love in this new children’s book from Brian James Freeman and Vincent Chong. The illustrations are simple and understated, yet explode on the page. The story is equally simple and understated, yet contains a deep moral about inclusion and acceptance. Put the two together, and the result is a book destined to be named a classic... what a gorgeous hardcover it is — and one sure to retain the durability that will be needed through voluminous readings."
— Mountain Times

"Vincent Chong’s illustrations really up the creepiness factor. It's one thing to write about dolls, and another to draw them. I saw some aspects in the illustration, design, and use of font in the book that reminded me a bit of some of Dave McKean’s illustrations in The Wolves in the Walls... Chong shades her birthmark in while not letting it define her face or personality, and it is really wonderful to see her imagination at work as she takes ownership of turning damaged pieces into imperfect dolls that she can relate to. In Chong’s illustration of the dolls seen through Emma's eyes, the monster dolls don’t seem monstrous...

For me, one of the things that makes this an absolutely outstanding book and a choice I would recommend for anyone working with elementary aged children is that it is one of the few picture books out there that depict disability in a positive and respectful way. Too often picture books about disabled people are educational texts describing a child’s disability for abled peers, and in the few fictional picture books, disabled people are rarely depicted as multifaceted individuals with positive characteristics. In fiction in general, disabled people are usually presented stereotypically, as either someone to feel sorry for (like Beth in Little Women), someone inspirational (think Auggie from Wonder), someone with 'magical' abilities (Charles Xavier of the X-Men), or a villain. In horror in particular, villainy is frequently signified by disfigurement or masking (some of the classics in horror fiction include the Phantom of the Opera, the Invisible Man, and Dorian Gray ).  Brian James Freeman has done a great job at subverting the trope of disability and disfigurement as villainous and monstrous, and celebrating imperfection, and it's really exciting to see this. Highly recommended for grades K+."
— MonsterLibrarian.com

Brian James Freeman is the author of Walking With Ghosts, The Painted Darkness, Blue November Storms, Black Fire, The Halloween Children (with Norman Prentiss), More Than Midnight, Weak and Wounded, Dreamlike States, Lost and Lonely, and Seven Stories, an Amazon eBook exclusive short story collection that was a #1 bestselling story collection in the US, UK, Germany, Spain, and France, and #2 bestseller in Italy. He is also the editor of Dark Screams (with Richard Chizmar), the Halloween Carnival series, Detours, and Midnight Under the Big Top. His other children's book is The Zombie Who Cried Human features artwork by Glenn Chadbourne. Visit Brian on the web at BrianJamesFreeman.com

Vincent Chong is a freelance illustrator and designer living in the UK.  Since 2004 he has worked for clients around the world on a wide variety of projects ranging from book and magazine illustration to concept art for film and tv and is most known for his work in the fantasy, horror and SF genres. Vincent has received a World Fantasy Award and multiple British Fantasy Awards for his artwork as well as being shortlisted for a Hugo Award and British Science Fiction Association Award.

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