Half Human, Half Animal
Jamie Hall
(Reviewer - Karrie G.)
2003 1stBooks Library
ISBN: 1410758095

Tales of Werewolves and Related Creatures.

Student Reviewer Karrie G. writes:

Your interest is immediately stirred when you see on the cover a strange creature with no hair in human's clothes, lying on the sidewalk beside a garbage can, rats crawling all over him. What is that thing?

The answer & more can be found in Half Human, Half Animal. It does, as the subtitle suggests, spend a chapter on werewolves & their origins in our culture, but it also tells us about shape shifters from other cultures.

What is a shape shifter, you ask? It is a human being with the ability to transform into an animal. In Asia there are legends of women turning into snakes, in India there are men turning into tigers, etc. We read of all kinds of shape shifters, their possible origins, & what they still mean to us today.

Besides being an interesting source of information on shape shifter itself, the book also provides many other sources of information concerning the subjects of this book. Movies, books, you name it.

What I liked most about Half Human, Half Animal, however, was the feeling that the old folk legends were really being explained. For as long as I can remember I've been intrigued by scary stories & monsters, & no two books seemed to follow the same set of rules. One would say werewolves were tormented men bitten by some horrifying monster & then doomed to change one a months under the full moon. Others cheerfully told of whole families being werewolves, of it being a way of life.

Who can give you a definition of something that doesn't exist? Jamie Hall can & does. I strongly recommend Half Human, Half Animal to anyone with an interest in werewolves, or any other kind of shape shifter, for that matter.
(12/21/03)

Karrie G.
A RebeccasReads.Com Associate Student Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
Karrie G. lives in The Netherlands. She is 15 years old, attends a Dutch Language School & is originally from Wisconsin, USA

Her favorite colors are: light blue, sea green, lavender & black!
Favorite sports are: swimming & soccer.
Favorite school subjects are: languages & creative writing class.
Favorite things to do are: playing the piano, reading, writing short stories & poetry, drawing & going to the movie theater.
The Netherlands is one of the smallest countries in Europe. Most people call the Netherlands Holland & it is about the size of Connecticut, but with a lot more people, sixteen million. You may think of tulips, chocolate, windmills & wooden shoes when you think of Holland. Although there are still lots of tulips & chocolate, & there are still some windmills, you wouldn't see many people wearing clogs today.