Trim The Tree, Deck The Halls, Hang The Garlic...There's A Vampire Coming For Christmas!
Written: Dec 08 '05 (Updated Feb 14 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Interesting story, a great read for middle school kids, not too violent.
Cons: No sequel so you never know exactly what happens to Zander and his family.
The Bottom Line: Looking for a slightly creepy book for Christmas? Like vampires? This isn't award winning literature but it's a great story.
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| Freak369's Full Review: The Vampire Who Came For Christmas Books |
When I saw this title in the database at the library I had to snicker. Vampires and Christmas, not two things you often see combined let alone made into a book. Curiosity got the best of me and I had to add it to my request list. When I got the email that it had arrived I was really interested in checking it out; like I said, you rarely ever associate vampires and Christmas. Looking at the front cover of it I was a little disappointed, it didn’t give the best first impression - a vampire wearing a Santa hat and holding a present. I really have no idea why they chose that for the cover art because at no point in time does the vampire in the story ever show up with a huge smile on his face, ready to hand out presents to everyone in the house. The old saying, “never judge a book by it’s cover” is painfully true in regards to this book. If you can stomach the sappy cover and get through the first few pages you are in for a very cute read. There’s some interesting parts to it but it does have a lot of the usual vampire twists to it.
The Vampire Who Came For Christmas
Ban Garcia is your average kid; he lives with his family in a somewhat sleepy town, has a pet cat named Licorice and gets teased non-stop by a kid named Hawk. It’s a week before Christmas, he has to rehearse for the holiday show that he is singing in and all he wants to do is sink his teeth into one of the apple turnovers that his mother made. But alas, they are reserved for a church supper. But there might be a way for him to earn one - his mother was complaining about yet another squirrel being loose in the attic. They strike up a deal, he goes and gets rid of the furry creature in exchange for one of the turnovers. Sounds innocent enough huh? Little does he know that there’s something bigger in the attic .. a lot bigger. When the cat refuses to go up the steps, he should have known that something was wrong. That cat lives to chase squirrels.
So what was in the attic? A very tall, rather confused vampire named Zander. He’d been there for a while before the Garcia family had moved in and must have slept right through all the noise of them moving in. He was easily overlooked when they were storing things in the attic, would you be able to see a bat hanging from a rafter if there were no lights in the room? Didn’t think so. Even though Ben was a little freaked out by Zander and his thinking that it was All Hallow’s Eve ... he didn’t lose his cool. Even when Zander admitted he was a vampire, Ben saw his teeth and everything fell into place - Ben still stayed as cool as a cucumber. It also helped that he explained a little about V.A.M.P ... Vampires Against Mutilating Humans. An organization that believes that it is wrong to feed off humans. This is when Ben learns that there are two types of vampires; the nice friendly ones and the “other” one.
The members of V.A.M.P. spend their time trying to undo what the bad vampires have done. Instead of feeding off the humans, they do good things. Now, the twist here is that there is a man [well, he is undead but he is still a man] that is the king of all vampires. He lives in a place called Multiveinia [weird name, I would have used something different] and has legions of vampires working for him. He sends them out on assignments all over the world, what he doesn’t know is that some of the members of his vamp squad are really in V.A.M.P. This is how Zander ended up at Ben’s house; he accidentally overslept after taking too many antihistamines and work up a week before Christmas instead of on All Hallow’s Eve. There’s be hell to pay if the meanie starts poking around to see if Zander completed his job. Much to Ben’s surprise, Zander is pretty normal. He has a wife named Layla and twins named Zandra and Zander Junior. If it weren’t for that pesky “seventh son of a seventh son” curse he had on him ... he’d have the perfect life.
The dilemma is simple. Zander overslept and he knows that the czar will be looking for him. He has no idea where he is supposed to be, meaning what his next assignment was supposed to be so he is sort of stuck in limbo ... in Ben’s attic. Ben does a good job of covering for him and trying to keep everyone else out of the attic. Zander learns about Ben, loves his singing and longs to back with his family. The face off between the czar and Zander happens almost right after Ben’s big holiday show. I won’t give away the ending but it is something that will choke you up a little. It just goes to show that even the smallest of deeds are rewarded. The downside to the book is that you never find out exactly what happens to Zander and his family. Since this was published so many years ago, I doubt that there is a sequel in the works so you’ll have to leave it up to your imagination as to what happens to Zander’s dream house in the woods.
The Bottom Line
Now that I’ve finished this book I am interested in ordering a few others from the author. These include such curious titles as “My Zombie Valentine” and “Liver Cookies”. I’d suggest this for middle school kids that want something funny to read for Christmas or Halloween. It’s pretty tame when it comes to the violent parts, there’s no sex or swearing and you can make your way through it in about an hour and a half if you read it non-stop. There’s only 116 pages and thankfully they are illustration free. If the cover art is any indication of what they may have included in the book, it’s a good thing that they skipped them. This was published in 1993 so there is a chance that most mainstream bookstores won’t have it in their inventory but if you’d like to check it out, look in the database of your local library or check online at used bookstores.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
Other vampire related reads ....
Vampire State Building • ”The Vampire’s Assistant”
The Vampire Prince • Vampire High
The Vampire Rabbit • Dark Thirst
Vampire Kisses • The Vampire Encyclopedia
The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles
Slayer Slang: A “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” Lexicon
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: A Stake To The Heart
Dorling Kindersley Castle Dracula: Romania's Vampire Home
Recommended:
Yes
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