• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7

Villainology is a veritable who’s who of characters from the underworld. Be they fictitious or all-too-genuine baddies, they are bound together by their infamous deeds. Author Arthur Slade takes a lighthearted view, nonetheless, and provides personal stats, their likes and dislikes, their high-school memories and an amazing array of cool facts along with up close and personal “interviews.” Readers will not only come away amused, they will come away with an enlarged store of general knowledge. Among the fourteen notable villains included are: The Wicked Witch of the West, Attila the Hun, The Wolf, Billy the Kid, The Headless Horseman, Morgan le Fay, Quin Hui, The Invisible Man, Scarface Capone, and a lineup of Shakespeare’s most memorable villains. Never-before-seen portraits of each by artist Derek Mah, make for a deliciously delectable rogue’s gallery.

The first volume in ARTHUR SLADE’s Hunchback Assignments series won the prestigious TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, and the second volume, The Dark Deeps, was a finalist for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and the CLA Young Adult Book Award. Slade is also the author of Dust, a national bestseller and the winner of the 2001 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature, the Mr. Christie’s Book Award and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Children’s Literature. His other books include Tribes, Megiddo’s Shadow, Jolted, Monsterology, Villainology and the Canadian Chills series. He lives in Saskatoon. Visit him online at arthurslade.com.

Arthur Slade's profile page

Derek Mah draws and paints in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which is where he does most of what he does. There are very few things he does away from Calgary. They will not be mentioned here.

Derek Mah's profile page

Praise for Monsterology:

“… a funny, fascinating look inside the lives of fifteen creepy characters … Each six-page entry features a terrific black-and-white illustration…”
— School Library Journal
“Derek Mah’s black-and-white illustrations are very good at doing ghoul. Within this structure, Slade lets fly with vernacular so hip that it might hurt were it not so appropriate for his intended audience… Knowledge of monsters is every child’s birthright, and Slade does his part here by packing a considerable amount of information into each of his sketches.”
— The Globe and Mail

“…[T]he book to buy for kids who wonder where a blood-sucking fiend comes from or how badly
a Sasquatch smells.”
— Editor’s pick, Canadian Living