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A WORD TO THE WISE It’s important to be prepared these days. Especially if you were to bump into a monster. What was that? No such thing as monsters? Sorry, we beg to differ. After getting our heads together and doing some brainstorming, the undersigned Sebastiano Barcaroli, Andrea Fontana, and Claudia Petrazzi, eminent monsterologists, decided to pack their bags, with a complete monster-seeker kit, of course, and set off to collect all the information needed to give the world Monsterpedia, the first illustrated monster encyclopedia. Fifty monsters are described in this illustrious illustrated guide. Of course, these aren’t the only ones that exist. There are many more monsters in the world. We selected a few, choosing some very famous monsters and others we know almost nothing about. But every one of them, absolutely every single one, is a creature with a thousand secrets, oddities, and incredible stories! On our monster journey we took no photos. Far too risky! What if they turned out blurry? What if the camera click scared the creature we were watching? No! We decided it was better to get Claudia to draw their portraits. Sketchbook in hand, she filled each page with all the strange, funny, and sometimes just plain weird creatures we bumped into. We’ll let you in on a secret . . . for any self-respecting monster-seeker, the best strategy is to start with myths and legends.