#14 Confessions from a Vampire Victim's Mom
“I think Zachary was chocolate-flavored when he was little. He was bitten soooooo many times I started thinking about buying muzzles for other kids.”
Sarah Wones Tomp wrote one of my favorite picture books: RED, WHITE & BLUE GOODBYE and the forthcoming "Moonshine" Young Adult novel MY BEST EVERYTHING, (Little, Brown 2015. Her musings can be found at "Writing on the Sidewalk". And while I'm sure she'd laugh at the sight of vampire fangs, I'm pretty sure she doesn't bite!
Everyone with a loved one in the military needs this picture book! You'll have to get it used because it's out of print.. but do... you'll be glad!
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Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!
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Lucky #13 Vampire Baby Play List
After 4 years of piano lessons, my teacher finally told me one day "If you aren't willing to try playing chord progressions, maybe you'd better quit." (And yes, I did want to bite her for that...) So I can't play a few bars. But my head is stuffed with music. Say pretty much anything and a song pops into my head.
So, of course Vampire Baby has a play list.
Music soothes the savage beast!
Music Playlist for Vampire Baby:
The No Bite! Song (by Tootie’s Brother)
Another One Bites the Dust
Crocodile Rock
The First Cut is the Deepest
Monster Mash
Little Vampire
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Dracula Disco
All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
Any other songs you think should be on the list? Hum a few bars . . .
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Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!
#11 Confessions of Vampire Baby--Top 10s and More
"Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is but to bite. Or try . . . " --Tootie aka Vampire Baby
Day #11 of Vampire Baby Confessions featured a visit to I Am A Reader, Not A Writer Blog spot for "Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett--Top 10 and Giveaway." Click over to discover my favorites--movies, snacks, picture book authors, and more!
Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett
Official Blog Tour
- October 25th Friday
- Review & Spotlight Me, My Shelf and I
- Tens List & Spotlight I Am a Reader, Not a Writer
- October 26th Saturday
- Review & Spotlight Two-Tall-Tales
- Music Playlist & Spotlight Best Books
- October 27th Sunday
- Review & Spotlight Racing to Read
- This or That & Spotlight Sassy Book Lovers
- October 28th Monday
- Review & Spotlight Mary’s Cup of Tea
- Favorite Things & Spotlight A Dream Within a Dream
- October 29th Tuesday
- Guest Post & Spotlight Paranormal Book Club
- Review & Spotlight Word to Dreams
- October 30th Wednesday
- Tens List & Spotlight Bookworm Bridgette’s World
- Spotlight Book Suburbia
- October 31st Thursday
- Jean Book Nerd
The "I Vant My Vampire Baby" Book Trailer Contest--is NOW!!!
Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!
#10: Confessions of a Vampire Dog!
Paul Meisel, VAMPIRE BABY's illustrator, the Dr. Frankenstein of our illustrator/writer partnership--in that he brings our creations to life--is a dog lover. He's never told me this directly, but I added dog + dog + dog together:
he sneaked a dog into the illustration for our other book together, DAD AND POP;
Flip thorugh the pages and count how many dogs Paul sneaked into the illustrations! If you comment with the correct number, I'll throw you a bone!
Do the math: Dog Lover!
his author photo shows him hugging not his wife . . . not his kids . . . . His dog;
and after illustrating 70 some books, he burst onto the author scene with an easy-reader SEE ME RUN that earns the coveted ALA Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor.
The Geisel Award is given for "Most Distinguished Beginning Reader"
No surprise then, that when I asked Paul to share some biting story--vampire or otherwise, he writes about a vampire dog:
"Well, we had the craziest biting dog [Rusty]*. He was a Brittany, and from the moment we got him he did nothing but go into a frenzy for no reason, which was odd as he was most of the time a loving dog who even smiled at us (full teeth smile!). We thought he had rage syndrome so we took him to a dog trainer who specialized in aggressive dogs. She said he was "fearful", but fine. Turned out she was wrong too. . . .
Other than all of my children having torn pants at the cuffs, there was one particularly amusing story relating to his biting.
One day while still a puppy, he went into one of his fits. I was walking him on the leash. He suddenly jumped up and grabbed hold of my jeans back pocket and pulled the pocket down, ripping my pants. Later that day I had to go to Petco and had forgotten about the rather large hole exposing my underwear until I reached the counter and went for my wallet, which I had of course had to put in my other back pocket."
Spoiler Alert: Turns out Rusty wasn't a Vampire Dog. Paul went onto explain: "As he aged, he [Rusty] mellowed a bit (and stopped biting us), and at around two and a half he went blind and couldn't stop drinking water. The vet guessed that he was born with a tumor on his pituitary which accounted for the rage syndrome symptoms as well as the drinking and blindness. His drinking obsession was stabilized with a drug that humans get (desmopressin), and he went on to live 7 more years as a happy, blind dog. (He only really had trouble getting around in the snow, when all scents were covered up.)
(You've got to admit, my Vampire Dog theory makes for a better story...)
The "I Vant My Vampire Baby" Book Trailer Contest--is NOW!!!
Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!
# 9 Confessions of a Girl Scout/Batgirl/Vampire
Sure sometimes I used my fangs for evil. But sometimes I used them for good. When evil struck I'd swoop in and defend the righteous! Fend off the foe! Save the day! Sort of Girl Scout/Batgirl hybrid.
Sadly, there is no badge for "Biting" or "Superhero Skills"
Take this one time, when I was about 5, and my brother 7, a bunch of us were playing "school" (as we did many summer days. Go figure . . . ) I was playing "teacher" this particular time. (No surprise to those of you who know me well, but I almost always played "teacher".) Anyway, this particular day, my brother was playing, too. And some bigger boys,--5th graders--came along. One of them started teasing my brother because he was "playing sissy school with babies."
The boy started pushing my brother. Joe pushed back. A fight broke out. An completely unfair fight, I must add here. A case of big mean bully picking on a weaker guy. Never fear. Girl Scout/Batgirl swooped in and bit the kid on his back. And kept biting-- clamping down as hard as those spiky, sharp baby teeth can--until the boy let go of Joe and ran away.
The big boy ran crying all the way home and told his father. Who came back, very indignant, to find the "bully who had bitten his son!" We were back to playing school then. A hush fell over the group. Then Girl Scout/Batgirl stepped forward. "I bit him!" I announced. "Cause he was picking on my brother."
The "I Vant My Vampire Baby" Book Trailer Contest--is NOW!!!
Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!
Confessions of a Vampire Baby's Victim #8
Mary Chapin Carpenter sings a song called "The Bug" (written by Mark Knoffler), it goes: "Sometimes your the windshield/sometimes your the ball. . . . "
That's how it is with babies, too. Sometimes of us are biters. And the rest of you are, well . . .
Take my friend, author Anne Broyles, reading her books, seeing her, knowing her, you'd never suspect her of being a biter. . .
Just released! Sure to become one of those we-read-it-every-year Christmas stories (illustrated by KE Lewis, Pelican)
In keeping with the season: A Russian Immigrant family's first Halloween in the U.S.
. . . And you'd be right.
That didn't prevent Anne from becoming a Vampire Baby's victim though. Here's her story:
"When I was three and a half, my family hosted a family with a toddler. I had a great time lugging this "baby" around and feeling like the "big kid." She was the same size as my doll, but talked some, could play chase, and seemed to adore me. So it was a shock when one day she brought her sweet face in close to mine and...chomped my cheek. It had never occurred to me that another human being would bite me, especially someone who I thought had loved me so much.
I pushed her off of me and yelled for my parents. I vividly remember not so much the pain (though I had teethmarks on my cheek for a while) as the betrayal of that baby's teeth. From then on, I ignored the visiting toddler and stuck with my doll, who was about the same size as the baby, but never, ever, not-even-once bit me."
3 1/2 year-old Anne and her "trusty" friend
The "I Vant My Vampire Baby" Book Trailer Contest--is NOW!!!
Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!
After, after, after you Enter the Contest: Here's Mary Chapin Carpenter singing "The Bug"
#6 I Was Aiming for the Wooden Spoon and Missed . . .
Confessions of a Kindergarten Vampire #6
Single mother of two before she was 22, my mother was what you politely call "strict." A staunch believer in the adage "spare the rod, spoil the child" any weapon at hand--fly swatter, shoe, yard stick, wooden spoon--served as her "rod" when she was riled. Rather than heed warning and curb our mischievous ways, my brother and I hid the various weapons under the couch and carried on . . .
While I do remember a repairman pulling out our gold vinyl couch and finding--to my mother's mortification--a grand assortment of "rods" hidden beneath it, I don't recall this episode. But everyone else in the family seems to. And it has always filled me with a sick sort of prideful remourse, so I'll share it here.
Mother Mary Ellen, 23 and gorgeous! In my defence, she was weilding a wooden spoon
The story goes that one Saturday afternoon, my mother was in the kitchen, whipping up a batch of pancakes, when my brother Joe, then about 3, committed some offense. While she was stirring and reprimanding, I crawled into the room, across the floor, and using her leg to steady myself, pulled up to a standing position, turned my face into her leg, opened wide and bit down! And, she says, smiled while she cried and hollered for me to let go. . .
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#5 Is it . . . In The Blood?
Confessions of a Baby Vampire #5
Out of consideration of the faint-of-heart the "red eye removal" feature has been applied to this photo. (Don't let the lack of fangs fool you: the Twilight Vamps have retractable fangs, too.)
Although it doesn't say it anywhere in the book, the main character in VAMPIRE BABY does have a name. He's named after my nephew, Devin. Devin, shares a common root with devil. No one would ever, ever call Devin a devil-child now--he's a top student, vice-president of his school, football player, all around nice guy--now, I say, because there was a time . . .
When my sis-in-law, Joanne, told me about Devin and "that time" she was called into the principal's office, I received the news with a mixture of relief and anxiety. After years of being the only "biter" (whispered from the side of their mouths from behind their hands, and with a shudder of disapproval) it was comforting in that misery-loves-company way to know I wasn't the only one. And a bit worrisome thinking it might be---cue the music dum-du-dum-dum-duhhhhhh-- in our blood.
A quick click through the internet (repository of all knowledge true and not) I'm not the only one worried that vampirism might be hereditary. According to an article from the Pravadaru Post, "Lee Eallis, a British physician, came up with a theory that linked the so-called vampires with porphyria, one of a group of rare inherited disorders due to disturbance of the metabolism of the breakdown product of the red blood pigment hemoglobin. In 1963, Eallis submitted his monograph titled On Porphyria and Etymology of Vampires to the Royal Society of Medicine."
So according to reports, a classmate named Casey "turned" Devin. It happened in Kindergarten, near the "house" corner or the "coloring" corner. Stories vary as to the location and time, as they do regarding the exact incantation Casey used to bring about Devin's transformation. All parties agree on one point. Consistently agreeable, smiley, all around good guy, Devin, turned around a sank his fangs into Casey's back. And when it was all over, even after being sent to the principal's office, even after the authorities were called, and threatened with expulsion and unimaginable punishment, Devin refused to repent. "You deserved it!" was his only defense.
Check out long, sharp, pointed fangs . . .
I'll leave it to you to decide: Is biting a symptom of some rare inherited vampiric disorder or is it simply a matter of being a nice guys last resort?
One last word on the subject. This is Devin's family dog. His name is Mr. Fangles
The "I Vant My Vampire Baby" Book Trailer Contest--is NOW!!!
Here's how: View the Vampire Baby by Kelly Bennett book trailer on Youtube. Leave a comment. You're entered to win you're very own authographed copy of the book. It's that easy!