Prince of Dorkness

This review is by guest reviewer/blogger Melanie.

Prince of Dorkness by Tim Collins

Nigel, last seen in the first book of this series Notes from a Totally Lame Vampire, has been dating Chloe for a while now. Nigel appears to be a 15 year old high school sophomore, but he’s really a vampire over 100 years old and Chloe is his human high school girlfriend. He loves her, but she breaks up with him. As if this wasn’t enough “Grandpa” moves in with Nigel’s family. Grandpa doesn’t do any work around the house but he does help himself to the family’s blood supply. No one in Nigel’s family understands the pain Nigel is going through and that includes Nigel losing his vampire powers. Now he’s back to being a lame vampire. But this isn’t the worst of it...Jason, the new guy is school, is a werewolf, and he’s dating Chloe. Nigel’s figures this out, but will Chloe realize it before it’s too late? The drama in Nigel’s life takes its toll on him, but the book ends with the hope of a third installment in the series.

Likes: I am not into the vampire genre at all, but this book hooked me from the first few pages. It’s a very smart book with respect to how it takes a lot of popular elements of the Twilight books and movies and weaves them into the story. Nigel’s voice is very similar to that of Greg Heffley and the style of writing in the book even including the mock notebook pages make this very similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. It is a very quick, fluffy read with enough teen angst to make it laugh-out-loud funny at times.

Dislikes: On more than one occasion the parents “drink too much blood,” and this is very clearly meant to parallel people drinking too much alcohol. Also when Nigel describes drinking Chloe’s blood for the first time it doesn’t take too much imagination to translate it to losing one’s virginity. While these elements are integral to the quality and enjoyment of the story, I would recommend this book to middle school kids and not upper elementary kids even though the style is so similar to other books they read and enjoy. Sadly these elements could make this book difficult to booktalk in schools depending on the make-up and tolerances of the community.

Carmen: An Urban Adaptation of the Opera

This review is by guest reviewer/blogger Melanie.

Carmen: An Urban Adaptation of the Opera by Walter Dean Myers

Summary: Carmen is a hot Latina who makes the mistake of falling in love with Jose, a local policeman. Too soon she learns that what she mistakes for Jose’s dark, brooding attractiveness is really mental instability. Unfortunately when she breaks it off with Jose and begins dating Escamillo, things go very wrong for Carmen and Jose. This is an adaptation and modernization of Bizet’s opera Carmen. Author notes and sheet music at the end, make this play fully able to be performed instead of read as only straight text.

Likes:

I love the opera Carmen and Myers’ adaptation kept the spirit of that while making it truly feel like the story could be set in Spanish Harlem instead of Seville.It was very quick read, and the characters were created in such a way that it was easy to envision them.

Dislikes:

It would be hard for kids to just “pick up” this book. While it is short, without a previous understanding of Bizet’s Carmen or even success reading plays, it will be a tough sell. In a school it would be great in an English or music class, but to read for fun...probably not. It’s more likely adults would read it for fun than teens.