The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites

 

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My first book, it would have to be about a vampire wouldn't it.  Oh, there is nothing wrong with books about vampires.  In fact, I love the Supernatural Genre.  Going all the way back to when I was in Middle School, so I guess this would be a good choice for my first book of the summer.

A little synopsis (short summary of the story) of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eight Grade Bites.  This is the first book in a series of 5 books featuring a young half human/half vampire whose parents were killed three years prior to when the story takes place.  Vladimir lives with his "Aunt" Nelly who is attempting to make life as normal as possible for the young vampire.  While he attends Middle School with his best friend Henry, he still feels out of place and ostracized by most of his classmates and principal.  As Vladimir struggles to find his place, his favorite teacher goes missing and the substitute that has been chosen to replace him, has an odd way of teaching English.  It will be a challenge for Vladimir to not only survive eight grade English, but someone from his dead father's past as well...

Just a little side note, I am a fast reader, so this book took me about a day to read - I do not expect my students to read this fast, but if they do, I will have plenty of other books for them to read.

Back on topic!  This was an interesting book.  As I said earlier, I enjoy the supernatural genre so I liked how this story played out.  The writer does not try to incorporate all the "usual" vampire lore.  Our young protagonist is part human/part vampire, so not all the usual rules should apply.  The antagonist, a vampire by the name of D'Ablo is "seen" only in short segments until we are really introduced to him more than half way into the book, which does help to setup some suspense - who is this guy and why is he looking for Vlad?  Since I don't want to give anything away, I will leave that up to my students to discuss. :) We also meet some interesting support for our protagonist in his "Aunt" Nelly (I say this because she isn't really his Aunt, but you do learn a little about her and how she came to be Vlad's guardian) and his best friend Henry.  Both of these characters are well aware of Vlad's interesting condition and accept him for who he is.  We will also learn a little about Vlad's father through his journal, but not much about his mother.  I hope that they explore that more in other books.

Speaking of other books, here is a list of the other books in the series, as well as the spin off series:

• Ninth Grade Slays (April 2008)
• Tenth Grade Bleeds (July 2009)
• Eleventh Grade Burns (February 2010)
• Twelfth Grade Kills (September 2010)

The Slayer Chronicles

• First Kill (September 2011)
• Second Chance (Coming October 2012)

The author of these stories is Heather Brewer, a Missouri native, who likes to call her fans Minions.  Her website is www.heatherbrewer.com and I highly suggest you take a look around if you have a chance.  She blogs about up and coming stories and even gives things away to her minions. :)  She also does book signings here in Missouri and since it looks like she will be releasing a new book in the near future, I would expect that she will be doing another signing soon.

Also, I found that there is an App for this series on iTunes.  Here is a little info on that:
"Based on the internationally bestselling book series The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer, this fun, fast-paced, retro-style game lets you battle your way through the halls of high school, scoring points and refueling with blood bags and blood-filled PB&J sandwiches. But you've got way bigger problems than a second period calculus test—Slayers are haunting the halls and they're out to get you! Do you have what it takes to make it out of high school alive?" - iTunes

So check out the book, let me know what you think, and maybe we can gets some minion buttons for ourselves!