Fingerprint Monsters and Dragons: And 100 Other Adventurous Creatures

The Munich-based creative team of Mössbauer, Keller, and Molnár demonstrate how readers can create an array of characters and objects using their fingerprints and an inkpad. The projects vary in complexity—drawn-on faces, limbs, and other features transform single fingerprints into monsters, pirates, knights, and more, while multiprint creations include aliens, pirates, robots, superheroes, and detectives. (A “Wild West” section, featuring a thumbprint-based cast of cowboys and Native Americans is ill-advised and jarring, especially given text like “Native Americans like to sit around a bonfire... and live in tepees.”) Mostly blank spreads featuring library, meadow, and other settings let readers populate the book itself with their one-of-a-kind artwork. Ages 8–12. (Apr.)