Making Friends with Frankenstein Review

Making friends with Frankenstein review: comic monster verse, not a miniature horror novel

This Making friends with Frankenstein review argues that Colin McNaughton's book is strongest when read as a lively collection of monster poems and pictures, not as a horror novel and not as a retelling of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The title points toward a familiar monster tradition, but the reading experience itself is lighter, jokier, and more episodic than that reference may initially suggest. What McNaughton offers is not dread in any sustained sense. He offers a child-friendly parade of creepy creatures, comic grotesques, and rhythmic verbal play designed to make the spooky feel inviting.

That distinction matters because expectations will decide much of a reader's response. Someone arriving for plot, escalation, or emotional depth will probably find the book slight. Someone arriving for rhyme, absurdity, and Halloweenish amusement will understand the point very quickly. The book belongs on the edge of horror because it borrows the imagery of monsters, but it also sits comfortably near poetry and drama because its real medium is short-form performance on the page.

The central case is simple: Making Friends with Frankenstein succeeds less as a "Frankenstein book" than as a nimble piece of comic monster verse. Its best qualities come from tone, pacing, and the cooperation between text and illustration. Its limits come from the same source. Because it prefers quick effects over accumulation, it entertains in bursts rather than building toward a larger imaginative payoff.

What kind of book this actually is

The most useful thing a review can do here is clear away the wrong shelf labels. Making Friends with Frankenstein is not a novel, not a chapter book of escalating peril, and not a serious Gothic exercise wearing children's packaging. It is a poetry collection with a macabre comic surface. The monsters are there to provoke laughter, mild shivers, and visual curiosity, not to drag the reader into psychological terror.

That does not make the book trivial. Children's comic verse has its own demands. It must move quickly, land images clearly, and keep its language audible enough to be fun when read aloud. McNaughton understands those demands. The pages are built for short attention spans without feeling mechanically simplified. Each piece arrives with a premise, a tonal hook, or a grotesque flourish that tries to justify its own space.

The "Frankenstein" in the title is therefore best treated as a cultural signal rather than a promise of adaptation. Readers do not need specialist knowledge of Shelley's novel to read this book well. All they need is recognition that Frankenstein belongs to the larger family of famous monsters. McNaughton uses that recognition as an entry point into a broader world of comic creature-making, where the pleasure lies in exaggeration, verbal bounce, and the friendly shock of the bizarre.

This is also why the book can appeal to readers who normally resist horror. It is not asking them to submit to fear. It is asking them to enjoy the costume box of horror: stitched bodies, odd creatures, morbid jokes, and the deliciously tasteless energy of things being a little disgusting without becoming overwhelming.

Why the title works, even if it slightly misleads

A lesser children's book might use a famous monster name as a lazy marketing shortcut. McNaughton does something more useful. By invoking Frankenstein, he gives the reader an immediate tonal neighborhood: laboratory monsters, old horror iconography, stitched-together absurdity, and the sense that the creepy will be theatrical rather than traumatic. The title is memorable because it turns a figure associated with fear into the basis of companionship and play.

At the same time, the title can mislead adult buyers who assume a stronger story spine than the book actually provides. "Making friends" sounds like a narrative premise. In practice, the book works through episodes, poetic conceits, and individual comic turns. That is not a weakness in itself, but it does mean the title promises a more unified experience than the pages finally deliver.

Still, even this slight mismatch reveals something smart about the book's design. Children often approach monster material through domestication. The pleasure is not only in being scared; it is in bringing the scary thing close enough to inspect, mock, or befriend. McNaughton understands that the comic grotesque lets children rehearse fear in a manageable form. The book repeatedly turns threat into performance, and performance into fun.

That playful taming of the monster is what separates this book from a genuinely unsettling read. Readers who want a monster story with grief, moral pressure, and emotional consequence should go instead to A Monster Calls review. McNaughton's project is much smaller and much lighter. Its ambition is not catharsis. It is mischief.

How McNaughton uses rhyme, rhythm, and pictures

The strongest professional case for Making Friends with Frankenstein lies in craft at the level of delivery. McNaughton writes for the ear as much as for the eye. The poems need movement. They need to feel as though they could be spoken with relish by a child, parent, or teacher leaning into the sillier corners of the language. That performative quality matters because monster material can go flat very fast if it is only descriptive.

Rhythm, in a book like this, is a form of trust. The child reader needs to feel carried from one line to the next. McNaughton tends to favor briskness over elaboration, which is the right instinct for comic verse built on grotesque payoff. The lines are there to set up an image, a twist, or an escalating visual absurdity. He does not linger for psychological depth because the poems are not trying to open inward. They are trying to spring outward.

The illustrations are equally important. In many children's poetry collections, pictures merely soften the page or repeat what the words have already made obvious. Here the visual component does more than decorate. It helps shape tone. The creatures feel cartooned rather than threatening, which means the drawings are part of the argument about reader fit. A nervous child flipping through the book can see quickly that the world is mischievous, not punishing.

That image-text partnership is what gives the collection its best moments. McNaughton understands that grotesque humor is usually funnier when it arrives in stereo: a verbal joke or setup on one side, an ugly-delightful visual exaggeration on the other. Because of that, the book reads less like a solemn poetry collection and more like a staged sequence of comic performances. It rewards being browsed, reread in fragments, and shared aloud with an audience willing to savor the silly.

Tone, comedy, and the pleasures of child-sized grotesque

Children's spooky books often fail by choosing the wrong intensity. If they are too mild, they evaporate. If they are too harsh, they lose the playful contract that makes younger readers want to return. Making Friends with Frankenstein mostly finds the middle ground by treating grotesquerie as a comic resource. Bodies are strange, monsters are exaggerated, and bad taste becomes part of the entertainment rather than a descent into real menace.

This is where McNaughton earns the book's shelf presence. He knows that children often enjoy the revolting precisely because it is safely stylized. A monster with impossible features, a ridiculous physical detail, or an overblown creaturely habit can provoke laughter because the book does not ask the reader to believe in danger at full strength. The monstrous is costume, game, and language exercise at once.

There is also a welcome irreverence in that stance. The book does not bow before "classic monsters" as if they were sacred material requiring solemn handling. It treats them as toys for the imagination. That makes the collection feel companionable rather than reverent. Readers are invited to join the joke, not stand back in admiration.

The downside of this tonal choice is that the book does not deepen much as it goes. Its pleasures are immediate. Once a poem has landed its image or comic pattern, it is usually finished with its business. Readers who want cumulative feeling, symbolic richness, or an aftertaste of unease may come away wanting more. But readers who understand that monster humor can justify itself through energy and repeatable delight will see why the book works.

Who this book is for, and who may bounce off it

The clearest audience for Making Friends with Frankenstein is children who enjoy being teased by the creepy without actually being frightened by it. It also suits adults reading aloud to children who like the seasonal feel of Halloween books but do not want nightmares, emotional heaviness, or complicated plot maintenance. Because the book is built from short pieces, it is especially useful for browsing, classroom sharing, bedtime sampling, and dipping in and out rather than reading straight through in one solemn sitting.

It is also a good fit for readers who like poetry when poetry behaves mischievously. Not every child responds to lyric seriousness, but many respond immediately to rhythm, absurdity, and grotesque visual play. This collection understands that entry point. It offers poems as entertainments first, which can be an excellent way of making verse feel available rather than dutiful.

Where reader mismatch happens is equally clear. A buyer expecting a full Frankenstein story, or even a unified monster narrative, may feel that the book stops before it truly begins. Likewise, readers who want their horror to bite harder will find the menace too diluted. If you want a more conventional middle-grade monster setup with clearer plot mechanics, My Friends Call Me Monster review points toward a more narrative reading path.

Some adults may also find the collection slighter than they hoped because children's comic verse can look effortless while actually depending on timing and freshness. If a reader does not enjoy gross-out exaggeration or visual caricature, the book may feel repetitive. That is a taste issue more than a failure, but it is worth naming plainly. This is a book of charm, not depth; bounce, not breadth.

Strengths that justify the review

The first major strength is accessibility without deadness. Many books designed for younger readers flatten language in the name of approachability. McNaughton is lighter on the page than a difficult poet would be, but he is not inert. The poems are shaped for sound, comic release, and momentum. That matters because children can detect dutiful writing very quickly.

The second strength is the book's understanding of monster imagery as flexible cultural material. Instead of trying to reproduce old horror grandeur in miniature, the collection uses famous creepy textures as ingredients for humor. That makes it friendlier to young readers and also truer to its own scale. It does not pretend to be epic. It knows that a quick grotesque laugh can be a complete artistic aim.

Third, the illustrations do real structural work. This deserves emphasis because picture-text integration is often underestimated in review writing. The success of Making Friends with Frankenstein does not live in words alone. The images create pacing, reassure reluctant readers, and sharpen the comic silhouette of the poems. Remove that visual intelligence and the book would lose much of its snap.

Finally, the collection has practical usefulness. Not every reviewed book needs to be a life-changing work. Some books earn their place by filling a specific reading need well. This one is highly usable for autumn displays, reluctant readers who like monsters but not sustained prose, and adults seeking short, shareable material that performs well aloud. In library terms, that is a real strength, not a minor one.

Cautions, limitations, and where the book feels thin

The most obvious limitation is that the book's pleasures are local. It does not accumulate into a large emotional or conceptual experience. For some readers that is exactly right. For others it means the collection can feel finished almost as soon as it begins. Individual pieces may charm, but the book as a whole does not necessarily grow in complexity.

A second caution is tonal sameness. Comic grotesque thrives on surprise, and any collection working in that mode risks repeating its own favorite effects. If a reader is delighted by the first wave of exaggeration, the book keeps paying out. If that reader is only mildly amused, the repetition can make the collection feel narrower than it is. There is not a great deal of tonal contrast to reset the experience.

There is also the shelf-label problem. Because the title is so strong and culturally resonant, some readers may arrive wanting more direct contact with the Frankenstein myth. They will not really get that. The book borrows monster prestige rather than participating in a sustained literary conversation with Shelley's novel. That is perfectly acceptable, but it should be said openly so that the right reader finds the right book.

These cautions do not undo the recommendation. They simply sharpen it. Making Friends with Frankenstein is not for readers seeking the best horror writing about monstrosity, and it is not for readers wanting an especially rich children's poetry sequence. It is for readers who want an energetic, illustrated, spooky-funny sampler that knows how to keep moving.

Context on the site and what to read next

Within UtoRead, this book is most useful as a bridge title. It opens one path toward the broader horror shelf, where monsters can become darker, stranger, or more psychologically charged. It opens another toward poetry and drama, where readers can compare how brevity, sound, and performance change a reading experience. Its real function in the catalog is not to dominate either category, but to connect them through accessible monster play.

For readers who want to stay with the monster motif but shift into something more emotionally serious, A Monster Calls review is the strongest next stop. For readers who want a more overtly narrative and middle-grade monster experience, My Friends Call Me Monster review is the cleaner contrast. And for readers curious about a more adult Gothic reworking of famous monstrous material, What Moves the Dead review offers a much sharper, stranger, and more atmospheric alternative.

That contrast set clarifies McNaughton's niche. He is not trying to rival the emotional seriousness of monster fiction or the density of Gothic prose. He is working in a smaller, more playful register. Seen that way, the book becomes easier to value. It is not an underpowered horror novel. It is a successful comic-poetry object operating at a younger, lighter frequency.

The site benefits from pages like this because readers do not always need the "most important" book on a theme. Sometimes they need the right doorway. Making Friends with Frankenstein is a doorway book: a seasonal, performative, monster-loving collection that can help a child or browsing adult discover whether spooky literature is appealing at all.

Final verdict

Making Friends with Frankenstein deserves a professional review because it is easy to misread from title and category alone. Read as a horror novel, it will seem too thin. Read as illustrated comic monster verse, it becomes much easier to appreciate. Colin McNaughton understands how to turn creepy material into child-friendly entertainment without draining it of all bite, and he understands that in this register pictures are part of the punchline, not a bonus feature.

The book is best for readers who want short bursts of spooky fun, strong visual caricature, and poems that can be enjoyed aloud. It is less rewarding for readers who want plot, emotional depth, or a meaningful engagement with the Frankenstein myth beyond its place in popular monster culture. That is a narrower recommendation than the title might suggest, but it is still a real recommendation.

So the final judgment is favorable with boundaries. This is a lively, useful, and pleasantly irreverent children's collection whose value lies in tone and format rather than narrative ambition. If you choose it for the right reasons, it should do exactly what it promises at heart: make monsters feel funny, approachable, and just spooky enough to be worth befriending.