Title Vampires : A Collection of Original Stories Series --- Author ed. Jane Yolen & Martin H. Greenberg Cover Art Cliff Nielsen Publisher HarperCollins - 2002 First Printing HarperCollins - 1993 Category Anthology Warnings None Main Characters See below Main Elements Vampires

• "Nobody has to Know"
• "There's No Such Thing"
• "Curse of the Undead"
• "Blood Kin"
• "Miss Emily's Roses"
• "The Blood-Ghoul of Scarsdale"
• "The Magic-Stealer"
• "Ahvel"
• "A Cold Stake"
• "Blood Libel"
• "Aunt Horrible's Last Visit"
• "Mama Gone"
• "Richie"

...when night falls, there's no telling who you might meet

You might meet him at the mall, a handsome boy with a gift for finding bargains. You may come across him sheltered in a town's synagogue. You may see her transformed into a bat on her way home from a long night out. You might find him lying in wait beneath a garlic-draped grave. Or, it might be someone you already know...

There's something for everyone in this eclectic collection of thirteen original vampire stories - some funny, some spooky, all ghoulishly good!

I picked this book up when there was a sale on children's books at my local bookstore. Sometimes kids books, especially young adult, can be as good, or even better, than adult fare. Plus, how could I go wrong, it was about vampires right?

Well, I was a little disappointed. This wasn't a young adult book as I had hoped, it was younger fare. Many of the stories didn't impress me at all, though if I were 10 as the book recommends I'd probably have liked it very much. I guess I'm just too old to enjoy stories about air-headed teens that say "rilly" instead of "really" every, like, second word 'ya know? I ended up rooting for the vampire to drink her dry in "The Blood-Ghoul of Scarsdale".

But as the back cover of the book said, there was something for everyone, and there were a few I really enjoyed reading. "Ahvel" was kind of a sweet story about a 5 year old boy who had a cat jump over his grave just after he was buried. He never really meant anyone any harm, but he was what he was.

The first one, "Nobody has to Know" makes a good introduction. It's short, dialogue based only, and leaves you wondering what happened next. A good lead in to the rest.

"Blood Libel" was the first Jewish vampire I'd encountered...no wait, not true. There was the one in the Dead in Dixie series, but he wasn't the main character. No, this was more interesting, particularly as the villagers tried to justify taking care of the good vampire based on the tenents of their religion.

And "A Cold Stake"...well that one was kind of strange and I have to admit I didn't really understand what a Fantasy Perceiver was versus a Reality Perceiver, and did that make the vampire just some guy who fantasized what he was, or was he really what he claimed to be. I don't know, but I liked the main character so that gave the story brownie points.

I also like Richie, a teenage vampire looking for a companion through the long eternity of being trapped in a young body. Never really accepted as an adult, not even being allowed to drive a car (not that he needed to, he could fly).

And overall, even the stories I didn't like, had a little something going for them. For example, the vampire isn't always who you might expect it to be. Some I never would have guessed.

So I recommend this book for younger readers, and I recommend some of the stories for older ones.