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Book Review of Ma and Pa Dracula

Ma and Pa Dracula
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ISBN 059043828X - Think your parents are odd? Jonathan's parents have yours beat by a mile. They've got a live-in tutor for Jonathan, sleep during the day, and tell him that TV, friends and school exist only in books of fiction. Jonathan doesn't know any different, so he sleeps through the days and accepts their frequent moves as normal. Until, that is, one day when he just can't sleep. Slipping out of the house, Jonathan makes a friend right in his own yard and finds out that his parents have told him some lies. School is real! People have friends! AND people, normal people, sleep at night.

Confronting his parents with his new-found knowledge and their lies, Jonathan is in for a shock. He's adopted and his parents are vampires, which explains every weird thing about his life so far and adds to the weird things that happen as he begins school, makes friends and generally becomes a normal kid. Of course, normal kids don't have to worry about hunger driving their parents to bite their friends... They swear they'd never do such a barbaric thing, but he's not so confident.

The sacrifices Jonathan's parents make for him, and the final one he must make for them, aren't the sort of things kids will deal with in the real world, but it's the sacrifice that counts. Strange, sure, but they're a family and that's what families do.

Cute, and sometimes amusing, Ma and Pa Dracula is closer to Martin's The Baby-sitters Club series than you would expect - and far enough from the BSC to appeal to a whole new batch of young fans.

- AnnaLovesBooks