FRANCES AND THE MONSTER

When her scientific experiment unleashes a monster, an 11-year-old Swiss girl’s extraordinary efforts to capture him reveal a surprising secret.

A solitary girl who likes tinkering with machines and wearing lab coats, Frances Stenzel has been raised by her famous scientist parents and a series of tutors inside her great-grandfather’s mansion in Bern. It’s August 1939, and she leads a quiet life, never going anywhere and rarely seeing anyone. When her parents depart for a symposium in Brussels, they leave Frances in the care of Hobbes, a mechanical man designed and programmed by her father to be her perfect tutor. Unhappy about being left with a machine, Frances explores the basement, discovering her great-grandfather’s journal and a secret lab with a frozen body. Deciphering the notes in the journal, she successfully animates the body, creating a massive monster. Immediately, Frances regrets what she has done and knows she must stop the monster as he flees into the center of Bern. Leaving home, Frances tracks the monster through the streets, across rooftops, along the river, and down into the city’s bear pit and sewers. Pursued by the police and aided by Hobbes, the chimpanzee her mother has been doing intelligence enhancing experiments on, and a boy who befriends her, Frances exhibits remarkable courage and resolve. Her memorable adventure, with strong echoes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, plays out against a colorful background as she confronts who she is in a truly shocking finale.

A fast-paced and remarkably original tale.