MONA THE VAMPIRE

Mona disrupts her school and ballet classes when she pretends to be a vampire.

From Publishers Weekly

Just as kids have a seemingly endless fascination with matters ghoulish, Holleyman's impressionable heroine decides to do a "vampire makeover" after hearing a particularly bloodcurdling bedtime story. The next day Mona, dressed as Dracula's daughter, and her cat, Fang (who "loved his new batwings"), enjoy "a special monstrous lunch. They had . . . clammy hammy sandwiches with tomato sauce, and squashed fly pie." Practicing their antics at school and ballet class, the gruesome twosome make themselves personae non gratae with the grownups. When Mona takes a shortcut home through the cemetery one afternoon, the clouds lower and "the wind shrieked like a witch on a broomstick"--and the youngster decides to reconsider the notion of being a full-time fiend. This droll debut features vivid, cartoony art replete with outlandish images that will tickle kids' funnybones--and maybe other bones as well. Ages 4-9. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- On Friday night after her mother goes to karate class, Mona's father reads her a story that makes her eyes pop and her blood curdle. On Saturday, she transforms herself into a vampire with her cat Fang as apprentice. The game goes well until Monday when Mona wreaks havoc in her gym class and ballet. A shortcut through the graveyard during a storm induces dreams of witches and ghouls. A pale Mona discards her vampire persona, and that evening, her father reads her a tale ``But this time it was about space invaders.'' This skinny, pop-eyed Mona looks like the kind of kid whose mother would need to know karate. The cartoon scenes fairly overflow with the gruesomeness this age group feasts upon, supplemented by the sort of antics they aspire to. Squashed-fly pie, fang-watering tomato-sauce sandwiches, dripping painted pictures at school, gravestones, lightning, and bats add comic detail and enrich the telling. Children will love this one, and rank Mona with the mischief-making characters created by Prelutsky and Silverstein. --Virginia Opocensky, formerly at Lincoln City Libraries, NECopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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