Mary Shelley had anything but a typical childhood. Her mother died when she was just 11 days old, and Mary would go to read and dream at her grave. Her father was strict, and her stepmother didn’t like her. The one bright spot was that many famous writers and poets came to their house and she loved to hide and listen to their stories. When she was 16, she ran off with her sister Claire and poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and they traveled all over Europe.There they came upon a ruined castle known as Castle Frankenstein. Eighteen months later they joined up with poet Lord Byron and went to his house in Switzerland. A storm comes and they begin to tell ghost stories.  Byron then challenges them all to write a ghost story. It takes Mary months to get an idea, but after she dreams about a dead body coming alive as a monster, she has her story. It takes nine months for her to imagine the rest of the story now known as Frankenstein. (New Jersey Garden State Children's Book Award 2021)