Booky Kids: Book of the Week

About Me

My name is Genevieve Woods and in addition to being the mother of an adorable preschooler named Oscar and his adorable toddler brother Henry, I am the Children's Buyer at Spellbinder Books, a small independent bookstore in Bishop, California. I am often asked by customers for recommendations...and thus the idea for this blog was sparked.

Many sites recommending books for kids are created by librarians and non-profits. While these are great sites, they often recommend out-of-print books. This site is all about the great books that are available now! While I am not being paid for these recommendations, I would appreciate it if readers would purchase the books I recommend from local independent bookstores, or even B&N. Basically don't buy from the evil empire (A_A_O_), because if you do much of our literary knowledge will be lost.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Book of the Week - Sucks to be Me

Vampires are hot. I suppose we have Twilight to thank for this, but other vampire books have caught on as well; Vampire Academy, Vampire Kisses, the Morganville Vampires. Curiously sales of Dracula have not picked up, but I guess that is just too traditional, there are no jean-wearing teen vamps in Dracula.

I have not read all the vampire books. And truthfully, I don't want to. Vampire sex is something I can do without, thank you very much! And, well, I'm not a teenager, so I don't really understand how pale skin and sucking blood is cool. Clearly, I was never cool in school. I'm okay with sex in teen books. I find it interesting that there is so much sex in teen books, but it is part of their lives, and I don't believe authors should act as though it doesn't exist. That said, a lot of the teen books are essentially romance teen trash (with sex), and I'm not such a fan of trash. Of course my trash is other people's general fiction - it is all a matter of taste.

There is one vampire book I do like - Sucks to be Me by Kimberly Pauley. This book takes off with the assumption that Vampires are cool, but then throws that on it's head by having very normal (thus uncool) parents be vampires. The main character must decide if she wants to be a vampire like her parents. The pros are that she could live forever and look hot (vampires ARE more attractive than mere mortal humans). The cons are that she would have to move and would never be able to see her best friend again. It isn't an easy choice, but with Kimberly Pauley telling the story, watching the main character decide is entirely entertaining.

And so, our book of the week this week is Sucks to be Me, where uncool vampires can be surprisingly cool.