Man Made Monsters

Walter Dean Myers Award Winner
International Literacy Association Book Award Winner
Whippoorwhill Award Winner
Reading the West Book Awards Shortlist

BEST OF THE YEAR
Washington Post · Booklist Editors’ Choice · Publishers Weekly · Horn Book · New York Public Library

Tsalagi should never have to live on human blood, but sometimes things just happen to sixteen-year-old girls.

Making her YA debut, Cherokee writer Andrea L. Rogers takes her place as one of the most striking voices of the horror renaissance that has swept the last decade.

Horror fans will get their thrills in this collection — from werewolves to vampires to zombies — all the time-worn horror baddies are there. But so are predators of a distinctly American variety – the horrors of empire, of intimate partner violence, of dispossession. And so too the monsters of Rogers’ imagination, that draw upon long-told Cherokee stories — of Deer Woman, fantastical sea creatures, and more.

Following one extended Cherokee family across the centuries, from the tribe’s homelands in Georgia in the 1830s to World War I, the Vietnam War, our own present, and well into the future, each story delivers a slice of a particular time period that will leave readers longing for more.

Alongside each story, Cherokee artist and language technologist Jeff Edwards delivers haunting illustrations that incorporate Cherokee syllabary.

But don’t just take it from us — award-winning writer of The Only Good Indians and Mongrels Stephen Graham Jones says that "Andrea Rogers writes like the house is on fire and her words are the only thing that can put it out."

Man-Made Monsters is a masterful, heartfelt, haunting collection ripe for crossover appeal — just don’t blame us if you start hearing things that go bump in the night.

P R A I S E

★ “Many of these stories sound as if they were passed down as family histories. It may read like speculative fiction, but it feels like truth.”
—Horn Book (starred)

★ “Stunning collection of short stories follows a Cherokee family through two centuries, beginning with something akin to a vampire attack and ending with zombies.”
—BCCB (starred)

★ “Spine-tingling...A simultaneously frightening and enthralling read.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)

★ “Chilling… Exquisite… A creepy and artful exploration of a haunting heritage.”
—Kirkus (starred)

★ “Startling…Will leave readers—adults as well as teens—unsettled, feeling like they have caught a glimpse into a larger world.”
—Booklist (starred)

★“Teen and adult readers looking for a taste of the gorgeously gruesome should snap up this dark, engrossing jewel.”
—Shelf-Awareness (starred)

“Dazzling, diverse, often terrifying.”
—Buffalo News

“Sometimes the only way to grapple with a monstrous past is through horror.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Incredibly grounded and intoxicating. A haunting and stunning book for you to enjoy.”
—Buzzfeed

“A brilliant and expansive journey across time, seen through a Cherokee lens. This collection is full to the brim with voice and breadth, including but not limited to magic, horror, and fantasy. The book is fun, funny, and dead-serious. It is beautifully written, and it is full of monsters.”
—Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize finalist author of There, There

“Rogers writes like the house is on fire and her words are the only thing that can put it out.”
—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Mongrels and The Only Good Indian

“Fierce, fantastic, ingeniously Indigenous. Smashes all expectations. I felt my teeth getting sharper with every turn of a page.”
—Cynthia Leitich Smith, New York Times bestselling author and author-curator of Heartdrum
 

Andrea L. Rogers is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has a forthcoming picture book from Heartdrum called When We Gather and a picture book from Levine Querido called Chooch Helped. Andrea’s YA collection of short horror stories, Man Made Monsters, received six starred reviews and won the Walter Dean Myers Award for Teens. She lives in Fayetteville, AR and can be found at andrealrogers.com.