VAMPIRE ISLAND
by Adele Griffin
Puffin/Penguin Young Readers Group
Hardcover: 0399237852
Paperback: 9780142411827
Ages 8-12
128 pages

Meet the Livingstones. Recent transplants to Manhattan from the Old World, they live above a vegetarian restaurant in an old brownstone on the island of Manhattan. Mom and Dad play in a rock band called the Dead Ringers. Their three children --- Lexie, Maddy and Hudson --- are dealing with friends, neighbors, crushes and growing up, just like kids everywhere. Okay, maybe not quite like kids everywhere. You see, the entire Livingstone family are vampires, or vegetarian fruit-bat/vampire hybrids to be exact. As a result, the Livingstone children are facing a few extra challenges as they try to fit in to their new New World lifestyle.

Oldest daughter Lexie has a crush on the hottest guy in her eighth-grade class, Dylan Easterby. But do her batlike habits (such as double-jointed knees and lightning-fast reflexes) and her tendency to quote gloomy, doomed poets set her apart from the crowd, or do they just make her seem odd? What's more, Lexie's best friend is exhibiting some seriously weird symptoms. What comes over him after dark?

Middle child Maddy is beginning to have second thoughts about her family's vegan lifestyle. When the family's new neighbors, the von Kriks, treat Maddy to a dinner of steak tartar, Maddy's thirst for blood grows almost as strong as her nose for trouble. Maddy suspects that the von Kriks are genuine pureblood Old World vampires, and in Harriet the Spy style, she grows determined to catch them in their lies, even if it means lacing tempting cookies with garlic.

Youngest child Hudson may be blessed with good looks and the ability to fly through the city at night, talking with other species as he goes, but he's pretty clueless when it comes to dealing with his fellow nine-year-olds. He uses Old World words like "whilst" and fails to understand their slang. But Hudson is about to experience a new kind of social suicide when he's appointed as an environmental Protector and embarks on an anti-litter crusade in his elementary school.

Imagining how a family of vampire hybrids might fit into 21st century New York life offers Adele Griffin endless opportunities to explore awkward situations, comical encounters and clever modern twists on classic vampire lore. The pun-filled narrative is full of lines like this one: "Ever since the night of her non-professed love, Lexie had been avoiding Dylan like the plague. Specifically, the Bombastus Plague of 1837."

Although the siblings' relationships and their interpersonal struggles at school and in the neighborhood are well developed, some readers may be confused by Griffin's overall vampire mythology. The differences between Old World and New World rules, the hierarchy of various types of vampires and half vampires, the role of the supervisory all-seeing Argos --- all these elements are introduced but lack full development and exploration. Since the ending of VAMPIRE ISLAND is left wide open for a sequel, chances are that Griffin will have more opportunities to fully flesh out her mythology while satisfying young readers' thirst for funny, non-frightening vampire adventures.

   --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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