Dick and Jane and Vampires

I don't know if you have seen the classic reading primer turned into a book about vampires, but it is at every bookstore. 

I detest this book.  At best it is apologetics for vampires and at worst it is indoctrination that vampires are your friends and that they want to help you and play with you.  Some pro vampire publisher is trying to get your child comfortable with vampires so that your child will invite them into your home and make you easy pickings. 

This book is irrisponsible, insane, and really cute. 

My youngest read it, laughing the entire time. 

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

This book had me with the cover.  I know, I know; don't judge a book by its cover.  Well I do.  Quite a bit, really.  And this cover sold me.  When I looked it up on the library website, I saw that it was available in audio and requested it immediately. 

I wasn't sure what I was expecting with this book.  I think I was expecting it to be really bad.  I am sure I wasn't expectiong what I got though.  This book is quite simply a biography of Abraham Lincoln. It really is.  A majority of the book is non fiction.  Strangely enough, vampires just kind of fell in to the open places in Lincoln's history.  It didn't feel forced.  Grahame-Smith did an excellent job with it.  I actually learned quite a bit from this book, which is strange because it is about fighting vampires. 

Gimmick Books

In the recent past there have been more than a few gimmick books come out. They are perpetually coming out, really, but the ones I am refering to are the horror gimmick books.

I guess it all started with The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. This excellent book was both funny and launched a zombie craze in literature. This was soon followed by the very novel (pardon the pun) idea of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Not saying that P&P&Z is a great book, only that the idea was very clever.

Now, it seems, every book ever written is bein given the treatment. I hear they are going to rewrite I Am Legend and put more Vampires in it. Then call it I Am Legend and Vampires. It is kind of rediculous and I imagine some of these books are selling quite well, but they are just a novelty.