Incorrigible young vampire Gibbus Mooney cannot wait to try out his new grown-up fangs.
He really wants to sink his teeth into “…something big. Something that moved. Something that…noticed.” As much as he wants to bite a person’s neck, though, his family condemns such bloodsucking behavior. They are proud, fruit-sucking “nectarians.” Gibbus has trouble digesting this fact and moodily slinks about the house. He bites into some silly and ultimately unsatisfying objects such as a stuffed gargoyle and a Stradivarius. He tries to startle his grandfather and the gardener but fails to sufficiently scare them. He then sits “under his favorite thinking tree next door,” where he nods off until a three-toothed slobbery thing rudely awakens him. It is toddler Mandy—“Mandibles”—who chews on everything, the younger sister of non-vampire boy Moe who has just moved in next door. While Gibbus is first impressed with her, Moe claims with disgust, “Biting’s for babies.” Suddenly Gibb is more interested in literally hanging out with Moe and happy to be sinking his fangs into a “toothsome” apple. Muir works in quite a few lessons: Biting others is not okay, be open to other points of view and make a friend who is a bit different. And it all goes down well, coupled with Corace’s deft acrylic, watercolor and pen-and-ink images of Gibbus’ humorous process of figuring things out.
Get ready for many year-round requests for this “fangtastic” title. (Picture book. 4-7)
