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First Second is issuing three of Joann Sfar's Little Vampire tales in one beautifully produced volume out May 12. Little Vampire includes "Little Vampire Goes to School," "Little Vampire Does Kung Fu!," and "Little Vampire and the Canine Defenders Club."

Sfar's Little Vampire tales feature two heroes, one important sidekick (a flying red dog ghost named Phantomato), and a multitude of creepy-funny secondary characters. The two heroes--Little Vampire and a boy named Michael--meet in the first tale when Little Vampire decides to go to school. Because he can only attend school at night, he amuses himself by doing Michael's homework. When Little Vampire's collection of ghostly guardians discover what he's up to, school is over for Little Vampire and he is sent to convince Michael to never tell about the Vampire and his world.

Michael, however, is a lonely little boy who lives with his grandparents and is bullied at school. As soon as he arrives to Little Vampire's crazy house with ghosts and ghouls of every shape, size, and color, he never wants to forget Little Vampire and his world.

The Little Vampire stories combine the wacky with the sweet, traditional folkloric tropes with more modern jokes, serious thoughtful passages with pure frivolity. Take a look at this exchange between the Captain of the Dead and Michael when he first arrives to Little Vampire's house:

Michael: I swear to devote my life to protecting the dead and keeping their memory. And if I break my word, may a thousand curses befall me.

Captain of the Dead: Now do the sign of the cross.

Michael: No. I can't do that.

Captain: It would give more strength to your oath.

Michael: But I'm Jewish, Captain. The cross doesn't mean much to me.

Captain: Do the sign of the star, in that case.

Michael: We don't do that either. And I don't believe much in God. 'Cause my parents are dead.

Captain: You're a bit young to believe in nothing.

Michael: Well, maybe he exists, Captain, but after what he did to me, I don't feel like I owe him anything.

Captain: You should think about all that some more. Sad times often open miraculous doorways.

Next up? Taking a bath--or not--jokes.

Sfar fills each page with colorful, compelling hand-drawn boxes. He'll also interrupt from time to time with "important information"--names of ghost monsters, for example. Each page and every panel gives the child reader something to think about, something to laugh at, an adventure to follow.

Little Vampire is highly recommended for readers ages 8 to 14.
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This review is part of First Second's Vampire Month. Check out First Second's blog for more!

You know, I love Poetry Friday. I really, really do. You can post your own poetry--say, about spring, or about (hellish) winter, or about graduation--or you can just post a picture of your cat and link it tangentially to a Poetry Friday book review.*

Today I review a rhyming picture book over at Book Buds for Poetry Friday. The book in question is the utterly fun Someday When My Cat Can Talk, by Caroline Lazo and illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. In Someday When My Cat Can Talk, the little girl protagonist imagines what her cat would say if he could talk. And, guess what? He takes a witty trip around Europe and has great things to say. Check out this fabulous stanza, which is my Poetry Friday entry:


He'll speak fondly of the snail he met
while camping out near Cannes.
And he'll whisper why she's hiding
from the chef at Cafe Sands.

Oh, snap! That's one smart cat. (And one smart picture book.)

My cat, however, pictured above, is a different sort of animal. I imagine his thought process as follows: Paper! R-i-i-i-i-p! [Blank] What's that sound? Food? [Blank] What's that sound? Food? Food? Food? [Blank] [Blank] [Blank] [Blank] R-i-i-i-i-p!

And, yeah, that's pretty much it for poor Norbert. He's a book killing, pear-shaped, dim witted, sweetheart of a cat. We love him, but he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

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* Speaking of original poetry...can I just say that I am getting several hits per day from people searching for "pedicure poems"? I'm honestly truly shocked by this.

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Also, did you know it's Vampire month? I'll be back in a few hours with a Vampire graphic novel review!
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Writer2be is on the roundup. Head on over and leave your links!

Photo by brokenarts

I love reading about–and discussing–the benefits of reading. I think there are so many.

Some of my favorite benefits from reading books are that:

• Reading can help you know you are not alone;
• Reading can help you safely experience or think about something that you might not be ready to experience in the world;
• Reading can help you work through things emotionally, and come to a greater understanding;
• Reading encourages imagination and creative thinking;
• Reading can help increase your focus and thinking;
• Reading can bring inspiration, hope, wisdom, comfort, and can act like a friend;
• And reading can provide wonderful entertainment, while helping you learn, often without realizing it.

Reading is also an inexpensive form of entertainment, far cheaper than a movie or CD if you’re buying a book, and free if you get the book from the library.

Brad Isaac has written a great article on the benefits of reading (he’s listed 26 benefits). The article is geared towards adults, and seems focused on non-fiction (and has a little bit of hype), but most of the benefits are still the same for fiction readers and child and teen readers, including that reading can: stimulate brain activity and thinking; increase vocabulary; give you a glimpse into other cultures and places; improve concentration and focus; increase self-esteem; improve memory; improve reasoning skills; and much more. You might not agree with all his listed benefits or the way he’s worded them, but many are validating. Check the article out.

I love books. LOVE them. I love them as a reader, leaping into other worlds, being entertained and moved. I also love them as a writer–appreciating good writing, and learning from it as I read. I often can’t seem to turn off the writer/editor part of me when I read.

One thing that helps me learn from a book–as a writer, editor, and reviewer–as I read, is to have a pad of post-it notes next to me, and to mark passages in books that move me, that are well-written, or that are particularly not well-written, using post-it notes. Some of my writer friends joke with me that my books like they have raggedy yellow haircuts, with all the post-it notes sticking out from the edges of the pages. When I particularly love a book, there are a TON of post-it notes–so many, that I should probably buy stock in a post-it note company. My books probably look peculiar to my fellow passengers on the subway and bus. But I love what I’m reading–and what I’m learning–too much to stop.

Sometimes I’m so into a book that I just quickly paste the post-it note next to the paragraph (in the margin), and decide I’ll go back later and fill in comments. But other times, I might jot down a few thoughts on the post-it note first. This keeps what is working, and what isn’t, in the writing, fresh in my mind when I finish the book and go back over it (as a reviewer), and, I think, keeps me analyzing the book (as a writer).

But when I just want to read a book without noticing what’s working and what doesn’t, I try not to use any post-it notes at all. It doesn’t always work; when a passage is particularly badly written, it throws me out of the book, and I itch to pick up a post-it note. The same thing happens when something is particularly beautifully written; I want to hold onto the language, how it moved me, the rhythm and cadence, and I guess I’m afraid I won’t if I don’t mark it somehow. I believe that just through reading, we absorb how to write, how to tell a story–but that by making it a conscious act to notice what works (and what doesn’t) in writing, we may absorb it even more.

I’m never going to stop reading for pleasure. But I also want my writing to keep getting better. So I use post-it notes.

A love of reading is so important. Children who read do better in school, and probably in life. I think they’re more prepared for things that come their way. And of course reading helps stimulate a child’s creativity and imagination–and uses their mind in a way that television and video games never will.

But many children seem to be losing their love of reading, as books are forced on them or dissected at school, or they are tested on them. In the UK, they recently discovered that children’s reading skills had hardly benefited from the government’s £500 million National Literacy Strategy because the children were so stressed out by test scores. That makes a lot of sense to me. Sure, it’s important to know how to write, and why a piece of writing works so well. But if you don’t also help a child to read, what good will it ever do? And I know that I always resisted reading the books that I was assigned in school, even though I was a voracious reader.

So what can we do to help children regain their love of reading?

Head teachers in the UK suggest something very simple and effective–read to your children. That time of sharing and love, where you read to your child, can create a lifelong love of reading. Great discussions can also come out of that reading aloud together. I also think it’s important to allow a child to read what they want to read. Let them pick their own books at the library and bookstore. Offer to buy a child some books–ones the child picks out. And have fun, reading together.