Bud is a perfectly normal boy leading a perfectly normal life until he is kidnapped by a lady vampire and her chums and taken to a castle. There he learns that he is the leader of the Monster Militia, a cadre of monsters who do good deeds while keeping out of the public eye. He also learns that monsters are the silliest, craziest and funniest people on the planet. Bud meets all the monsters he ever feared, and many new ones. With his friend Maisie (who is elected queen of the witches), he sets off to return wrongdoing monsters to the fold and generally make the world a less scary place. In this first book of the Monsters? Shoo! series, you will meet Thingie (the thing under the bed, who is under the bed because she is scared of…everything), Fred the monster Frankenstein-ish monster (frighteningly British and urbane, but with dubious taste in smoking jackets) and his half brother Frank (who was never finished), the Wolfman ( a timid fellow), Kooky Clown (who thinks being funny is scary) and a host of ghosts, ghouls and giggle-inducing…monsters, most of whom are more afraid of kids than kids are of them.

This book will not only entertain, but give children good reason to stop being afraid of the dark and feel themselves capable of warding off whatever their imaginations can conjure.

Noah Powell was nine years old when he began thinking up ideas for this book. He loves reading, playing and collecting trading card game cards, collecting, designing and shooting his father with foam dart guns and playing basketball. One of his purposes in writing this book is to support all that collecting , which threatens to drive his parents into bankruptcy.

Barry Marks is a lawyer and Noah’s father, but is otherwise rather uninteresting.