Mommy blogs are full of articles about how to reuse stuff you have lying around the house as toys for your kids, but for whatever reason, the trappings of my teens and twenties have not proven very entertaining for the girls. The awesome car stereo I had in my Honda CRX is long gone and it might be a while before the girls age into my dartboard and collection of heavy metal cd’s. Even my old volleyballs are not as fun as the purple and pink balls we picked up for 99 cents at the drug store.

So I was thrilled the other day to find my four year old happily flipping through my First Edition Monster Manual. If you didn’t spend big chunks of high school playing Dungeons and Dragons, you might not have heard of it. It’s basically an encyclopedia of monsters with illustrations that look a lot like what a high school student might doodle on their notebook. Check out this review at Something Awful to get a flavor for it.

The big question you’re probably asking yourself right now is “Good God! How is that appropriate for kids?” If you happen to have a kid that loves monsters, the pictures won’t give her (or him) nightmares–they’re that cheesy. The only real issue is the occasional topless demon or mermaid, but that’s not much different than the average clothing catalog. The only caveat is that you probably don’t want to read the monster descriptions out loud. I made this mistake with the ochre jelly and won’t make it again.