School bus 13 screeches to a halt, and you and your friends step out and onto the grounds of the Academy for Monsters. Mrs. Redflint–the dragon lady (and Dean of Students)–tells you you’re turning into a monster, hands you the key to your dorm room, and encourages you to stop by the Wellness Center, where your exact form of monstrosity will be “diagnosed.”  If your name is Falcon Quinn, you watch as your friend Max–a huge, hairy dude who plays the triangle in middle school band–becomes a Sasquatch.  And your friend Megan Crofton–a quiet, melancholy girl still trying to get over the loss of her sisters–slowly transforms into a wind elemental.  All around you are other kids– ghouls, Frankensteins, leprachauns, were-things.  But what are you?  Are you a monster at all?

Well, until we figure out the answer to that question, let’s get you unpacked.  Your roommates– a were-bear named Lincoln Pugh, and another guy named Jonny Frankenstein–won’t be arriving until later.  In the meantime, there’s a lot to do– ask questions of Quimby, the fortune-telling head-in-a-jar; read The Gullet, the literary magazine of the Academy for Monsters, full of stories and poems written by monsters, (including ROAD NOT TAKEN DESTROY! by young Frankenstein Timothy Sparkbolt);  investigate a list of the characters you’re likely to encounter as you stroll around the grounds; you can even take a sneak peek at Falcon Quinn II–the exact title still a secret–coming in spring of 2011.   But perhaps the best thing to do first might be to read the first chapter of Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror by clicking right here. You can also browse the book by clicking on the Browse Inside icon in the column to the right, or right here..

Above all, you must resist your monster nature!  You don’t want to be a monster.  Do you?