THEY BITE

September 1, 2009
Tales of vampires, hellhounds, werewolves, demons, and zombies fill this compendium of myth, purported truth, and pop-culture perspectives aimed at providing insight into the origins and motivations of such monsters. Maberry and Kramer follow their ghastly subjects progress out of folktale and myth and into literary storytelling that allows readers to confront monsters in the service of learning about the mindset of the ancestors who invented them. Boxed sidebars and artwork from pop-cultural sources (comic-book and paperback covers, movie posters, etc.) festoon the text, and despite highfalutin intentions, the tone throughout is lighthearted in manner, even breezy. Genuine literary-historical detail is given its due, howeverfor instance, when Maberry and Kramer contrast Bram Stokers and other vampire interpreters deviations from the lore of vampire folktales. Instructive, fun, eminently readable, this is a perfect acquisition for Halloween or, for the goths in ones patron base, all the year round.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)