Vampires

Children's Literature - Kathleen Foucart

The "Monster Chronicles" is a series of reference books about things that go bump in the night. In this book, divided into five sections, vampires are the topic of choice. Unfortunately for such a huge topic, the same number of pages is devoted to these creatures of the night as there are for each of the other books in the series. The first section starts with basic blood-sucking mythologies, and in the second goes into more vampire-specific lore. The third section discusses historical figures that have been linked with vampires, and the fourth is devoted specifically to the famous Dracula. That leaves the fifth section for an abbreviated discussion of more modern vampire stories. Also, the book is riddled with production errors, including a mis-captioned photo on page thirty and the parts in the fifth section on both the Buffy movie and TV series are cut off, making them a disjointed read at best. It is a shame that all the information needed to be squeezed into a forty-eight-page format, as the quality of the writing and background information in the beginning are very good, and the last section could have been done with more information. Nevertheless, as a basic introduction it serves its purpose and can be supplemented with the information included in the bibliography and the Web sites provided for more information.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7-Written in a chatty style that draws readers in, these titles attempt to explain the origins of and continuing fascination with the individual monsters. Drawings and movie stills make up the bulk of the illustrations. Frankenstein and Vampires also include brief excerpts from the novels Frankenstein and Dracula. However, since Frankenstein is not the name of the monster in Mary Shelley's book, the references to him as such are erroneous. Although Krensky clarifies this misconception in chapter two, he continues to refer to him in subsequent references as "Frankenstein," which is confusing. There is also a mistake in the description of the plot of Young Frankenstein. Gene Wilder's character is not the son of Victor Frankenstein but his grandson. Vampires is missing several sentences in its description of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In addition, a caption of George Hamilton as a vampire in Love at First Bite is incorrectly labeled as being from the movie Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Despite some errors, these titles are sure to entice horror fans.-S K Joiner, Brazoria County Library System, Angleton, TX Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.