Someday, I'll open up a book like this and see an entry on the albatwitch. But that day is not today.

Monsters of the Northeast: True Tales of Bigfoot, Vampires, and Other Legendary Creatures by Jessica Freeburg and Natalie Fowler caught my eye in a local bookstore recently and, as is my habit in such cases. I quickly scanned the table of contents for south-central Pennsylvania's own little apple-loving bigfoot, the albatwitch. Alas, no luck. But, not to be discouraged, I decided to take it home with me anyway to see what other local cryptids might be lurking in the area.

My home state of Pennsylvania seems, to my dismay, to be relatively free of unexplained beasties -- although Thunderbirds apparently have been spied throughout the commonwealth. Other states have at least a few to their credit, including Cassie the Sea Monster in Maine, the Devil Monkey of Danville and the Glowing Thing of Samuel Moore Reservoir in New Hampshire, the Cursed Vampire Family of Lt. Spaulding in Vermont, the Pukwudgie and the Gloucester Sea Serpent in Massachusetts, the Winsted Wild Man and the Glawackys in Connecticut, the Montauk Monster in New York, the Jersey Devil and the Big Red Eye in New Jersey, the Sykesville Monster and the Goatman in Maryland, and the Fence Rail Dog and the Corpse Light in Delaware. Even tiny Rhode Island got New England's Last Vampire.

Pennsylvania just got the White Bigfoot way out west in Beaver County, and the aforementioned Thunderbirds. Where's our albatwitch??

That's not the entirety of creatures described and discussed in Freeburg and Fowler's book, but it gives you a taste of what's on offer here. They pack quite a bit into 130 pages.

I wish they were some illustrations included, especially when the authors discuss photographs and sketches in the text. A visual element would have added a lot to the book. And I didn't always love their habit of "fictionalizing" the various encounters they described, adding in dialogue and details more suited to a novel than a legitimate account.

Then again, Monsters of the Northeast doesn't pretend to be a scholarly journal on the subject. The authors are providing anecdotal evidence only, not striving to prove anything or persuade anyone of anything. And sometimes, that's enough.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It is entertaining and informative, and I learned about a few regional cryptozoological wonders that had not come to my attention before. (I still wish a few would show up in my area, though!)