My Sister, the Vampire - Softcover

Grade 5-8-- Unexpected events leave Tim, Sarah, and their younger sister, Jenny, alone and unsupervised at their family's summer cabin in Maine, where their pleasure in having total freedom is dampened by frightening incidents. Hundreds of bats invade the house; the girl in the neighboring cabin is wasting away, haunted by disturbing dreams; and Sarah seems to be developing the same symptoms. Dark strangers appear in the community, using a formal and stilted form of speech suggesting that English might not be their native language. Then Tim and Sarah face the fact that the bites on their necks are not from mosquitoes and that vampires have come to Starfish Harbor. Can the kids track them down and destroy them before Sarah becomes a full-fledged bloodsucker? Prim, rigid Great-aunt Clara seems to be a deliberate stereotype intended for comic relief, and the adult vampires are straight out of an old horror movie, but this scary adventure has likable child characters, good dialogue, and a nice relationship between the two sets of siblings in the neighboring cabins. Readers will figure out what's going on long before the kids do (and they take a ridiculously long time to see the light), but this could work in the book's favor by building suspense as the characters slowly put all the clues together and move toward the exciting climax. Acceptable entertainment if you don't analyze it too closely. --Lyle Blake Smythers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This novel--whose subject is handled more seriously than its title suggests--concerns Tim, 12, who worries that his sister Sarah may actually become a vampire. A profusion of bats in their summer cabin brings in two peculiar exterminators. Shortly thereafter, Sarah appears under the same hypnotic spell as their friend Emily, who has become so pale, gaunt and listless. Emily's brother John, convinced of strange goings-on in the Maine resort town, joins Sarah and Tim in ferreting out the truth. Garden's main protagonists are quick-witted and courageous, yet deceptive: they fib to their temporarily absent parents about being under the guardianship of an aunt who, in fact, has postponed her visit. The dialogue often sounds strained and the essentially bizarre story is slow in starting. It grows needlessly convoluted (a drug-runner theory, for example, is thrown in as a possible reason for the strange goings-on), but there's enough tension overall to appease SF/horror fans. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.