An attractive, entertaining, and insightful introduction to the bloodsucking undead.
The team behind Secrets of the Witch (2020) takes on another legendary being.
Cautiously skirting the creature’s sexual overtones, most of this conversational book provides a history of vampire lore narrated by a pale-skinned vampire who promises to do readers no harm. Following a gallery of seven vampires (and zombie or witch hybrids) from African, Mexican, Caribbean, and Asian Pacific folklore, the concise text moves from antiquity to the present. The inclusion of the obscure first vampires reflects the writers’ research: They frame demonic goddesses such as Mesopotamia’s Lamashtu and Sekhmet and the Greeks’ Lamia and Empusa as the first vampires. Roman and Hindu revenants, Lilith of Jewish lore, and the Dacian strigoi give way to medieval European reanimated corpses and to the Renaissance undead, devils incarnated in werewolves. Along the way, the definition of vampire is stretched to accommodate the fantastical figures here. Only halfway through the book do we meet Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but every forerunner is fascinating. Post-Enlightenment, after reason puts a stake through the predator’s heart, literature gives fresh lifeblood to vampires. As in the previous book, the copious dramatic art is a big attraction. Pérez’s romantic style (one drawing channels Henry Fuseli), using dark/light contrast and touches of color to chilling effect, perfectly fits its subject. Seven pages of symbols and emblems (garlic, stake, coffin, etc.) and a glossary close out the work.
An attractive, entertaining, and insightful introduction to the bloodsucking undead. (Nonfiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9780711285071
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Imagine compressing one hundred years of American history into 48 pages! Imagine making history come alive with photographs of people dressed in period costumes, slipping in odd historical facts while debunking myths, tucking in colonial crafts kids can try at home, and providing a sympathetic narrator who attempts to present the point of view of European settlers, Native Americans, African slaves, and indentured servants. The author of this title and American Revolution, 1700–1800 (see above) in the “Chronicle of America” series, tries hard, but the snippets selected to add interest, the overly dramatic prose, lack of sources, and excessive compression of complex issues make this title less than successful. Each double-paged layout tackles a new topic. Those include the voyage, first Americans, food, clothing, shelter, education, warfare, illness, farming, crafts, and the like. Topics usually begin with questions in italics to stimulate reader interest. For example: “How would you feel if you sat down to a dinner of meat loaf with maggots?” An introductory paragraph or two follows with short discussions of related topics, three or four uncaptioned photographs of people and objects from America’s Living History Museums, and a tan, blue, or red box with a “surprising history” snippet, or a colonial craft to try. Unsupported statistics abound, “In the early days of the European settlements, 80 percent of the people who came to Virginia died once they got there.” Or, “It took 2500 trees to build a ship the size of the Mayflower.” Or, “After months at sea with no fresh food, is it any wonder that some early settlers were forced to turn to cannibalism?” The glossy photos and breezy tone will appeal to young history enthusiasts, but caution should be exercised lest the reader come away with some very odd ideas about the past. The author concludes with a few titles for further reading, Web sites, picture credits, and an index. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-05107-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
Overall, the stories are engaging and inspiring, from the tribulations that came upon Emancipation to the strange new world...
Brief fictional sketches walk readers through 150 years of American history.
Arato takes nine powerful slices of American history—such as Valley Forge, the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Gold Rush, the founding of the Perkins School for the Blind and Berea College, Hull House, the Johnstown Flood—and wraps them in neat, emotive, unvarnished stories that feature a day in the life of a child caught up in the action. Shannon introduces each segment with an atmospheric illustration, Disney-like scene-setters that function as launching pads for the affecting tales. One may be as plain as the miseries of war—“The Union army regrouped at Bull Run under a pall of defeat so thick, it seemed to suck the air from the sky”—while another may take a more psychological air, as one boy hides a gold nugget so his father can’t gamble it away. Only rarely does the author let the sheer fervor of the story lead her onto shaky ground: Did the Oneida Nation really consider the Revolutionary War as “our cause,” or as a strategic alliance? (She clarifies in a fact-based endnote—one accompanies each chapter—that the Oneidas were ultimately given the raw end of the stick, their treaty lands diminished from 6 million acres to 32 acres.)
Overall, the stories are engaging and inspiring, from the tribulations that came upon Emancipation to the strange new world opened to Chinese workers recruited for the Transcontinental Railroad to the pure brilliance of a school for the blind. (Historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-926818-91-7
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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