As someone who works in a Children's Department, you'd expect me to have read the “Wimpy Kid” books, right? I'm (sorta) ashamed to say that I haven't (yet), but the appeal to the kids is easy to understand without having done so from the comforting comic sketches for struggling readers, and then the fact that they're reading about a kid much like themselves. With all the vampire popularity sinking it's fangs into society, refusing to stop feeding on our blood (and money) anytime soon, it's no surprise that our young ones have been entranced as well.
Tim Collin's “Notes From a Totally Lame Vampire” is the perfect blend for the young Wimpy-Vampire-Kid reader, telling the story of Nigel Parker who's very much like every other fifteen year old apart from the fangs, immortality, and hilariously embarrassing parents and younger sister who bullies him. Teenage years are very challenging as it is and when we're that age, we paradoxically both revel in it and are eager to be grow up already, but Nigel is cursed to live forever in the body of an undeveloped, un-glittering, unattractive, undead fifteen year old, immortal in the twilight of his life. It's not fun times for him. Nigel crushes on the the new girl, Chloe, who he often writes hilarious and dark poems of, but finds himself competing for her affection with his classmates who can offer to grow old with her and won't be tempted to sink their teeth into her veins. Important stuff, right?
What makes Nigel so lame is his inability to brave daylight without sunscreen, his younger sister is stronger than him (and still as annoying as ordinary sisters), his parents recreate their anniversaries in cemeteries, and as other vampires are threatened by snakes and wolves, Nigel is terrorized by the aggressive cooing of pigeons and physical abuse from packs of squirrels. While he's the perfect example of the vampire you don't want to be, you laugh at him lovingly, you root for him, you want to stay awake through the nights with him, the two of you will share a glass of O-negative blood, and since he can't blush, you do it for him when his father sits him down for a talk on “safe-feeding.”
Children of ages 9-12 will love this fantasy version of the “Wimpy Kid” books and the parents who are helping their young ones through the amusing entries will find in-between-the-line-laughs of their own.
I can't begin to tell you how bloodthirsty I am for the sequel "Prince of Dorkness: More Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire". I might order it early from the UK, I don't think I can wait until September. Nigel is just too hilarious.
Favorite Quote: It's actually one of his poems I loved. They're all so terrific (and hilariously terrible) in their own ways. This is Nigel writing to Chloe for Valentine's Day.
"Have a nice Valentine's Day. (Too weak.)
Sending you sincere wishes on this Valentine's Day. (Too formal.)
I've been watching you, but you don't know. (Too creepy.)
Roses are red, violets are blue. I've waited a century for a girl like you. (Too corny.)
I've searched through the frozen mists of eternity for you. (Too vampirey.)
Yield to the forbidden music of my soul. (Way too vampirey.)
Dear Chloe, please can I sink my teeth into your neck and drink your blood? (One step at a time, Nigel.)"
(pg. 73)
If that doesn't please you, your heart is deader than Nigel's.
Rating: 4 out of 5 *vicious stereotypes.
(*See pg. 92. Hilarious!)
Tabitha Suzuma's newest title, “Forbidden” explores a brave and taboo topic: romantic love between a seventeen-year old brother and his sixteen-year old sister. With a father who abandons his family and a mother who's only interested in drinking and a new boyfriend, Lochan and Maya Whitely are charged with looking after their three younger siblings to keep their family as whole as possible.
When they're not making sacrifices to keep thirteen-year old Kit safe from his self-destructive path, assuring Tiffin he's not too different from other “normal” boys, and keeping young Willa entertained, Lochan and Maya have their own lives they're trying to manage; Lochan must maintain his grades to get accepted to UCLA as Maya shies away from romantic dealings, and most importantly, keeping their love hidden from the world to avoid familial and legal consequences.
The chapters alternate between each of the two main characters, and while they're not always the most distinguished of voices, the reader gets a good grasp on how anti-social, academic Lochan and typical teen Maya's cosmically wrong feelings come to unfold. Their love has existed forever and evolved past that of siblings, but their prohibited romance will never be accepted by outsiders, and how could it, when they struggle with understanding it themselves?
The siblings in this gritty novel will test the moral boundaries of their unfair life circumstances and attempt to sneak past the challenges of what society has dictated of them, journeying towards an anguishing ending. Much like “Flowers of the Attic”, this novel is for the strong-hearted reader that will sympathize with the story's core: you don't always choose who you love.
Favorite Quote:
"There are no laws, no boundaries on feelings. We can love each other as much and as deeply as we want. No one, Maya, no one can ever take that away from us."
- Lochan.
Bookmark: A sheet of grid paper I was using to take notes, inscribed "Poor excuse for a bookmark."
Rating: 4 out of 5 beers I wanted to drink after the penultimate chapter.
I'm nothing if not sentimental. As a person, my favorite presents are the small gifts with amazing meaning, or even small beautiful gestures behind them, something that suggests that I said something and you heard the words; a charmed keychain with a horse to celebrate the year of my birth, the Little Golden Book of "Alice in Wonderland" (one of my all-time favorites), blue chip cookies, an inscribed bottle, my favorite candies on an off-day, or most recently, being reunited with a friend I lost at the age of five, maybe six (I was too young then to register when it happened and too old now to remember).
