Monsterhuman

Isaac, eleven, a clepsit adopted by humans, and Wren, a human adopted by clepsits, face the voracans that are trying to claw their way out of their crowded underground home.

When Kjersti A. Skomsvold was seventeen years old and about to start engineering studies at college, she found herself almost unable to move. "Laid out like a relic" in a nursing home, she listens to an old woman dying, watches her boyfriend drift away, and makes compendious lists of her worries (that she will have to go speed-dating in a wheelchair, that she will be afraid and in pain for the rest of her life). She also begins to compose a novel on Post-it notes that she sticks on the wall above her bed. Monsterhuman is an autofictional tour de force--a funny, sad, astoundingly energetic novel about suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, the power of writing, and twenty-first-century literary life.

Mathea Martinsen has never been good at dealing with other people. After a lifetime, her only real accomplishment is her longevity: everyone she reads about in the obituaries has died younger than she is now. Afraid that her life will be over before anyone knows that she lived, Mathea digs out her old wedding dress, bakes some sweet cakes, and heads out into the world—to make her mark. She buries a time capsule out in the yard. (It gets dug up to make room for a flagpole.) She wears her late husband's watch and hopes people will ask her for the time. (They never do.) Is it really possible for a woman to disappear so completely that the world won't notice her passing? The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am is a macabre twist on the notion that life "must be lived to the fullest."

Could half-human, half-ape creatures really roam the Himalayan Mountains and the forests of North America? If tales of Bigfoot, Yeti, and Sasquatch are just stories, why do so many people report seeing these monsters in remote areas around the world? What would it be like to come upon a footprint of the Abominable Snowman or catch sight of Mothman, and how can you tell if the creature lurking down the path is part human and part beast? In Half-Human Monsters and Other Fiends, young readers will read historical stories and modern-day accounts of encounters with half-human monsters. Kids will get all the facts they need to help them spot Bigfoot, Mothman, ghouls, and other supernatural creatures. Children will also investigate the truth behind the stories, exploring the fears and superstitions of different cultures and looking at the scientific facts that might explain the seemingly unexplainable. If you love a nerve-racking story but also want to investigate the truth behind the myths, this is the book for you!

Isaac, eleven, a clepsit adopted by humans, and Wren, a human adopted by clepsits, face the voracans that are trying to claw their way out of their crowded underground home.