Vampires are not the easiest thing to translate to children's fiction, but the authors who attempt the genre for kids do so in really creative and unique ways. The following books are all fun examples of vampire tales that are perfectly crafted for young readers.
Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe
The seminal classic about a dog, a cat, and a vampire bunny.
The Monroe family attend a screening of Dracula, but as they take their seats they discover a small box on one of them containing something unusual: a bunny. Naturally the name the small rabbit Bunnicula and bring him home as their newest pet. Meanwhile, the Monroe’s cat and dog, Chester and Harold, find their newest housemate perplexing. Chester, a very well-read cat, becomes suspicious of Bunnicula’s nighttime activities and soon theorizes that the bunny may in fact be a small vampire. The appearance every morning of white vegetables, drained of all their juices, only furthers Chester's suspicions.
From here the mystery unfolds, narrated by skeptical Harold. He trusts his friend Chester, but he thinks the bunny seems harmless. But those vegetables are odd, and Chester seems awfully sure.
Bunnicula is a gentle mystery with nothing actually frightening. For kids exploring their first chapter books, it's a fun and accessible story that eager readers will probably consume in one or two sittings.
Goosebumps: Vampire Breath by R.L. Stine
Chilling vampires! Spooky castles! Time-traveling halitosis! This book has all this and, well, mostly just this. But the use of bad breath is, for sure, unique in vampire literature.
Like any good entry in the Goosebumps collection, our heroes are a pair of average kids who have unwittingly stumbled into Elementary school-aged horror. That is to say, a fourth grader will find these stakes just high enough for a good scare and no lingering trauma.
Freddy and his best friend, Cara, discover a bottle labeled “Vampire Breath” in his basement. Because they’re kids, of course they open the bottle and summon the weakly monikered Count Nightwing, a vampire unsure of where he left his fangs. I wonder of R.L. Stine was secretly writing a comedy here? This Goosebumps entry tries to look beyond its corniness and attempts to deliver a spooky and bloodless vampire tale for young readers. The story is riddled with plot holes, but again, the audience for this book is kids, and they’re likely to find the scares and mysteries interesting enough to hold their attention on a long car trip or rainy afternoon. And, I must admit, the twist at the end got me. My expectations were pretty low at that point, and I genuinely gasped at the final reveal. Well done, Mr. Stine. Well done.
Ham Helsing: Vampire Hunter by Rich Moyer
There is an extended prologue in Ham Helsing: Vampire Hunter that had me audibly laughing as I read it in my library. Yes, this is humor geared towards elementary and middle grade kids, but it was still pretty funny.
Ham Helsing: Vampire Hunter is over-the-top, a little gross and a little rude, but also a heartfelt story about the power of friendship. Ham Helsing comes from a line of less-than-distinguished and often inept vampire hunters. After the family’s legacy is passed onto him, he travels on his first assignment to defeat a dangerous vampire who is terrorizing a small mountain village. On his journey, though, Ham is joined by a coterie of unexpected friends and allies, and learns an important lesson about assumptions and expectations. Villains become heroes and heroes turn out to be villains, and kids will learn that nothing in this world is clear-cut and obvious. Well, maybe they’ll learn it subconsciously, because they’ll mostly be laughing at the gags. Personally, I couldn’t stop laughing at the strips of bacon that have joined the porcine legions of the undead (that's a solid visual gag).
This graphic novel is a quick read for kids who enjoy books such as Dog Man or Big Nate, and for those who appreciate a little adventure mixed with a lot of laughs.
The Vanquishers by Kalynn Bayron
I’ve been a fan of Bayron’s YA work for awhile and I was so excited to discover that she not only wrote a middle grade book, but that it was also a vampire story! And even though I went into reading The Vanquishers with my over-hyped expectations, I was delighted to find that it delivered in such a satisfying way.
In this mirror reality of San Antonio, vampires were a real and persistent threat in the world until The Reaping 20 years ago. A group of superhero-esque vampire slayers known as the Vanquishers had a final confrontation here with the last hive of vampires and eradicated them forever from humanity. But, even after so much time has passed, there are some who think the vampire threat continues to this day. Boog, Cedrick, and Jules’ families are in that group, vampire-proofing their homes every night and never staying out after sunset. Boog, Cedrick, and Jules are sick of the ridicule over their old-fashioned families and are excited to change the status quo after new neighbors arrive on their street.
But when a friend disappears from a party after dark, Boog and her friends are left to consider the possibility that their parents weren’t overreacting, and a vampire threat really might still be lurking in the twilight hours of San Antonio.
As the first part of a series, The Vanquishers builds a mystery around vampires, the people who hunt them, and how they could potentially still exist. Not all storylines conclude in this volume, but the story is so well-crafted that the dangling threads are more than enough enticement to continue the series.
Fake Blood by Whitney Gardner
This graphic novel took some unexpected, yet delightful, twists.
There is a basic message in this story common (for good reason) among most middle grade fiction about loving and accepting oneself. It’s a solid message important for all kids transitioning away from childhood. It’s such a pervasive theme in middle grade fiction that the entire genre can almost be defined by it. In lesser books, this can be exhausting. But this is not a lesser book.
Meet AJ. AJ has a crush on Nia, but he’s too shy to talk to her. He knows she enjoys reading, especially books about vampires, and so he makes the type of bad decisions an eleven-year-old kid is prone to make. He pretends to be a vampire, a plan without an endgame strategy that could go down any predictable road until lessons are learned. But Fake Blood avoids those conventions and takes readers on an entertaining adventure with a really likeable group of characters. Along with AJ and Nia are Hunter and Ivy, two pals with a penchant for one-upmanship behaviors and trouble making. There is BB, AJ’s older, and kinda wiser, teen sister. And finally, we have Mr. Niles, a Brit teaching at a Portland middle school, who is dealing with his own unusual relationship issues.
A sweet and funny read (complete with a gentle skewering of Twilight), Fake Blood is great fun for kids, teens, or adults with a twinge of nostalgia.
If you enjoy these recommendations and are looking for more Halloween reads,
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