Kid Konnection: This Totally Bites!
Twelve year old Emma-Rose has always felt just a little bit different. She has pale skin and dark hair, hates sunshine and garlic and her own dog is scared of her. She has a recurring nightmare that hundreds of bats with glowing red eyes are staring at her in the dark. When Emma-Rose’s great-aunt Margo comes to visit and Emma-Rose is assigned a genealogy project at school, she becomes convinced that both she and her great-aunt are vampires.
This Totally Bites! by Ruth Ames is part of the Poison Apple series published by Scholastic, and I found it to be a delightful middle grade reader. If you know a middle grade reader who is anxious to try paranormal books, this book would make a fantastic introduction. For the most part, Emma-Rose is a pretty typical middle schooler – she’s worried about friends, boys and fitting in. When all the evidence points to her being a vampire, she’s understandably upset, because that’s definitely not the way to fit in in middle school!
I think young readers will relate to Emma-Rose’s friendships and her fight with her best friend. Many will also relate to her lack of confidence. Emma-Rose figures a few things out and gains some assurance and hopefully readers will too. This Totally Bites! is a fun story that middle graders, particularly girls, will enjoy.
For more children’s books reviews, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.
This sounds adorable! I’m curious what she finds out!!!
Sounds cute. I like the cover.
This was a find at last year’s BEA. I thought it was cute and so did Booking Daughter.
I think my daughter would be beyond it at this point, but I remember the reviews on it when it first came out. I think it would be preferable over some of this other paranormal stuff out there.
thanks so much for your recommendation, I have little people on my buying list and love to hear of fun books to share.
I often have customers come into the used book shop who say that their younger kids are reading above grade level, but have a hard time picking books because the content is then too sophisticated.
This sounds like a perfect book to recommend for those type of readers. Thanks so much for the review.
The girls love this book and it’s always checked out from my library shelves!
Scholastic does have some really great books for many different ages, and though it sounds like this one might be a little young for my kids, I can think of a few children that I know that would probably really enjoy it. Thanks for the great review on this one. I am adding it to my gift wish list.
This one sounds fun
I am sure I would have been all over it when I was that age
This sounds like a fun read and I really love the cover too!
What’s funny is that I have this on the shelf from BEA last year when we went on the Scholastic tour. I hope to get to it someday soon. Good review.
I love vampires and this sounds like a cute & fun read.
The book looks so much fun! I would have definitely read it as a kid
Sounds like a good primer for paranormal!
The Girl got this last year at BEA and she’s really looking forward to reading it. I hope she makes time for it this summer.
This sounds like such a cute book!