Capstone Press, 2011
\nISBN: 9781429654524
\nAvailable: New hardcover<\/p>\n
\u201cAre vampires charming heartthrobs or evil undead\u201d? That\u2019s the question Jen Jones poses to her readers in The Girl\u2019s Guide to Vampires. It\u2019s pretty clear what her take is going to be, and it\u2019s pretty clear who her target audience is, with photos from\u00a0Twilight <\/em>and\u00a0The Vampire Diaries<\/em> splashed across the pages. There is some factual information (including a few images) but it\u2019s brief, and the constant comparisons to the vampires in\u00a0Twilight <\/em>distract from that. It\u2019s pretty obvious that, to this author, vampires are definite boyfriend material. There\u2019s even a\u00a0Cosmo<\/em>-style quiz to help bedazzled girls identify whether their crush is a vampire.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Jones glosses over the monster within even the most \u201ccharming heartthrobs\u201d.\u00a0 Jones referred to Spike from\u00a0Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em> as \u201cmischievous\u201d and Angel as a \u201cgood-hearted romantic\u201d.\u00a0 Perhaps she missed Season Two, where they were both sociopathic monsters.\u00a0 Even the vampires in\u00a0Twilight <\/em>are hardly harmless. Jones does acknowledge that they can be \u201cdownright devilish\u201d, but her tone downplays that, and in a nonfiction book about vampires, it would be nice to see their dark side taken a little more seriously. <\/p>\n The age group the book is intended for seems up in the air. Jones chooses Adele Griffin\u2019s\u00a0Vampire Island<\/em>, Sienna Mercer\u2019s series\u00a0My Sister the Vampire<\/em>, and\u00a0Bunnicula <\/em>as top choices for reading material. These books are aimed at upper elementary school kids. In the next breath she\u2019s recommending the\u00a0Twilight <\/em>movies,\u00a0Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em>, and\u00a0The Vampire Diaries<\/em>, targeted at teens and adults. My local library apparently has this problem too. I found this book shelved in the children\u2019s nonfiction, but it\u2019s now been moved to the middle school books.\u00a0 Capstone indicates that it\u2019s written at a grade 3 reading level, with a suggested interest level of grades 3-9.\u00a0 It\u2019s clearly meant to catch reluctant readers, but chances are, that with those designations from the publisher it will be purchased for elementary collections, and third grade is awfully young for\u00a0Twilight<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Girl\u2019s Guide to Vampires<\/em>, with its gorgeous artwork and design, color photographs, and conversational style, will completely succeed at hooking reluctant readers, especially Twilight groupies.\u00a0 As a nonfiction introduction to vampires, though, it is a disappointment.<\/p>\n Contains: n\/a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Capstone Press, 2011 ISBN: 9781429654524 Available: New hardcover \u201cAre vampires charming heartthrobs or evil undead\u201d? That\u2019s the question Jen Jones poses to her readers in The Girl\u2019s Guide to Vampires. It\u2019s pretty clear what her take is going to be, and it\u2019s pretty clear who her target audience is, with photos from\u00a0Twilight and\u00a0The Vampire Diaries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-vampires"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eu9f-14","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nReviewed by: Kirsten Kowalewski<\/p>\n