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Summer Reading Is Killing Me! Part 2: Tween and Middle School Reads

It turns out I actually don’t have to do much work to provide you with a good list of scary books for summer reading. Andrea Lipinski has done most of the work for me in the New York Public Library’s blog with a post titled Dark, Creepy, Spooky, Scary Crossover Books.

We’ve actually reviewed a bunch of these here, although I’m not sure we completely agree with her age recommendations. You might check out our reviews to see what we thought. There are some great books on the list, though!

Reviewed here:

Eighth Grade Bites: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod (first in a series)

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brogsol (this was a Stoker nominee last year in the YA category)

A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

Tales from Lovecraft Middle School: Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gilman (first in a series)

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (a Newbery Award winner)

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry (a Stoker Award winner in the YA category last year, and first in a series– followed by Dust & Decay)

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (a Stoker nominee last year)

Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck

Zom-B by Darren Shan (first in a series that will eventually comprise thirteen books)

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow (first in a series)

 

Here are some additional suggestions from our own Middle School List. With a very few exceptions, we’ve reviewed nearly all of these:

 

Zombies

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Generation Dead: Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

The Dead by Charlie Higson

The Enemy by Charlie Higson

Zombie Queen of Newbery High by Amanda Ashby

You Are So Undead to Me by Stacey Jay

Zombie Blondes by Brian James

 

Supernatural Horror

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keately Snyder

The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann

The Seer of Shadows by Avi

The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith

Blackbriar, Fingers and others by William Sleator

Stranger With My Face, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and others by Lois Duncan

Ghosts I Have Been, Thirteen Past Dead, and others by Richard Peck

Monster’s Proof by Richard Lewis

Skeleton Man and others by Joseph Bruchac

Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins

Bad Girls Don’t Die by Katie Alender

From Bad to Cursed by Katie Alender

Mercy by Rebecca Lim

 

Vampires

Sucks to be Me: The all-true confessions of Mina Hamilton, Vampire (maybe) by Kimberly Pauley

Still Sucks to be Me: The all-true confessions of Mina Smith, Teen Vampire by Kimberly Pauley

Parliament of Blood by Justin Richards

Blood Ninja by Nick Lake

Look for Me by Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar (graphic novel)

 

Werewolves

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

Wereworld by Curtis Jobling

Under My Skin by Judith Graves

 

Anthologies

Bloody Horowitz by Anthony Horowitz (collection)

Fear by R.L.  Stine

 

 

Posted on May 9, 2013 by , Reply

School Bites: Teen Vampires Go To School

Some of the most popular searches leading people to our site involve the words “teen” and “vampire”. Vampire fiction for teens isn’t something I’ve written about much lately.We have a blog, Reading Bites, that covers that topic, so mostly I don’t.

But with such high demand for YA vampire titles and series, and the release of  Gates of Paradise, the last book in Melissa de la Cruz’s Blue Bloods series (and the extremely cool graphic novel of the original book), I thought I’d offer up some titles. Christmas vacation is now well and truly over, and spring break seems far away… this is really the doldrums of the school year. Vampires turned as teens don’t really ever get a break– their appearance forces them to live through middle school and high school again and again to avoid suspicion, since every kid is required to go to school (unless their parents homeschool them– a strategy I don’t think I’ve seen yet). You really never know who could be sitting next to you in algebra class. So MonsterLibrarian.com presents to you a list of books and series about teen vampires who spend their days (or nights) attending school. Some we’ve reviewed, and some we haven’t. I’m sure many of them are already familiar to librarians– knowledge of them is practically a requirement these days, just to answer the question “Now that I’ve finished Twilight, what do I read next?” But I think there may also be some surprises– not every vampire book or series is a paranormal romance, targeted to girls, or aimed at ages 15 and up. Check them out to find out what school is like in a vampire’s world!

 

School Bites: Teen Vampire Fiction

 

Chronicles of Vladimir Tod series by Heather Brewer

The Morganville Vampires  series by Rachel Caine

House of Night series by P.C. and Kristen Cast

Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire: Because the Undead Have Feelings Too by Tim Collins

Prince of Dorkness: More Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire by Tim Collins

High School Bites by Liza Conrad

Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz

Vamped and ReVamped by Lucienne Diver

Oliver Nocturne series by Kevin Emerson

Evernight series by Claudia Gray

Alex van Helsing series by Jason Henderson

Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel

Blood Coven series by Mari Mancusi

Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead

Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead

Red Moon Rising by Peter Moore

Sucks to be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) by Kimberly Pauley

Still Sucks to be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire by Kimberly Pauley

Vampire High and Vampire High: Sophomore Year by Douglas Rees

 

Note: Not all books on this list are appropriate for all teens. As always, MonsterLibrarian.com cautions you to make sure the book is in the right hands!

Posted on January 17, 2013 by , Comments off

Help a Reader Out: Can Christians Write Horror?

 

Well, this is not really a question of identifying a book. But it is interesting, so I’m going to share it anyway.
A mystery keyword searcher asked:

Can Christians write about vampire or werewolf books?

I am not a Christian, so forgive me if I’m misinterpreting things, but the answer seems pretty simple. Of course they can. The traditional vampire, with his allergy to the cross, seems ready-made for the Christian horror writer. And werewolves, who often have a conflict between animal nature and human morality, seem like they’d work out just fine as well. Demons, witches, all kinds of supernatural creatures, and even the end of days appear in the Bible– it seems to me that it is simply the framework the writer uses that makes the difference.

Horror is traditionally conservative– evil is usually defeated, at least temporarily. That’s not to say that all horror has a moral, or that evil is defeated in all of horror fiction, because it’s certainly true that horror, especially today, can deal with impersonal evil, or can even be amoral– a good story, but not necessarily with a definite stance on right or wrong. But horror as a genre does give writers an opportunity to address faith, and questions of faith. I think this very thought-provoking blog post by horror author Maurice Broaddus, is worth reading if you are interested in this topic. There are people who think that it’s not possible (or at least extremely difficult) for Christians to write horror, and there’s an interesting discussion of that here. I’d say that whether what’s marketed as “Christian horror” really falls under the umbrella of the horror genre (which I would argue has some pretty broad boundaries, based on the kinds of books we are solicited to review here) is a different thing, than whether horror can be written by Christians (which is addressed in depth in this blog post over at TheoFantastique). Personally, I don’t care whether a book in any genre is written by a Christian, pagan, atheist, etcetera, so long as it does the job for me without hammering me over the head with a message.

At any rate, the question at hand is whether Christians can write about vampires and werewolves, not whether Christian horror is truly horror. I really think the answer to the original question is “yes.” As Mr. Broaddus says “If God could communicate through a burning bush and a donkey, surely He could communicate through a few scary stories.” Very aptly put.

Editor’s note:  A 2020 update! I’m adding another link here regarding this topic that I just learned of thanks to Mike Duke. 

Posted on December 27, 2012 by , 4 comments
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