Straw for Two

Bitten by the word-slurping vampire Draculink, young Odilon became an ink drinker in the book by the same name, learning to live letter-by-letter as he drank the ink from the pages of books through a straw. In his vampiric state, Odilon is now light as a feather, quiet as a pair of slippers, and sharp-eyed as a cat ("courtesy of all the books about cats I've drunk"). He's lived "a thousand lives" through the stories he's sipped, becoming an astronaut, a pirate, and a pioneer. But something's wrong: "The hard part is that I can't share my straw with anyone. I'm very lonely." This problem forces him back to Draculink's dank, dark crypt to ask the unthinkable: "Mr. Draculink, can I bite a girl so that she becomes like me?" But when Odilon returns to the lonely, old ink drinker, he's in for a surprise--alongside Draculink's long, wooden casket, he finds a second, smaller, suspiciously Odilon-sized box. Draculink can't be planning to adopt the unwilling young ink drinker! Before Odilon can guess Draculink's intentions, however, he discovers a girl worthy of his ink-thirsty bite, the new girl in class, Carmilla, "prettier than the prettiest girl in school." ("The assignment was to draw a map of our country, with the capital and the main cities. I drew a heart instead, with a capital named Carmilla," Odilon gushes.) But when he chases her, she runs toward the cemetery... home of Draculink's crypt!

Expect more inspired weirdness from Eric Sanvoisin, as he pens the worthy follow-up to the bizarrely lovable The Ink Drinker. And Martin Matje's looming blue illustrations make for splendid drinking once again. (Ages 9 and older) --Paul Hughes