How to Get Rid of a Vampire (Using Ketchup, Garlic Cloves and a Bit of Imagination)

Reviewed By  Janet Mawdesley       November 24, 2017

 

Author  J.M. Erre. Translated: Sander Berg. Illusttrated: Clemence Lallemand

Distributor:      Bloomsbury
ISBN:                 9781846884221
Publisher:         Alma Books
Release Date:   October 2017  

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Zazie is a precocious child who seems to over exaggerate everything in her life. Everything is drama, drama, drama, drama. It does not matter whether it is a friend’s party, her ‘awful’ cousin Lucas or the new schoolteacher. Somehow or other she always finds something to dramatize!

She loves to read and write and when she receives a lovely new note book, she decides it is time she began to keep a diary, so begins to write down her impressions of life, he cousin, her friends and her parents, which when you are about 10 years old, are very interesting indeed!

That is all very well, but when she also finds a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a book she has been forbidden, and I mean forbidden to read, things begin to get rather out of control, even for Zazie.

Hiding under her bed to read the story, out of the sight of her mother and father who, in her opinion always over react to everything, she decides to record her concerns about the fall out should a vampire be loose in the area.

When a new teacher takes over her class, Zazie decides he is the image of Count Dracula, as described in Bram Stoker’s book and manages to convince her friends, as well as her deadly enemies the Chamille twins that he, Mr Fleder, with his pale skin and red rimmed eyes, is a vampire!

The more she reads about Count Dracula, in her secret hideout under her bed, the more, convinced she is that Mr Felder is a real life Vampire! She begins to come up with a plan to save not just her life, but that of her friends and classmates, which is when events take a turn for the worse, getting outrageously out of control! Even for one of Zazie’s plans.

Her beloved cat Roudoudou, is a great listener in all of this plotting, but when she finds s herself in terrible trouble, and all her friends laughing at her, Zazie begins to realise it is simply her imagination which is out of control.

How To Get Rid of Vampire is a fun filled look at the power of the imagination, the unlimited scope of children’s minds and the huge amount of fun and chaos that can be created when there is the possibility of a vampire living in your neighbourhood.

Entertaining, original and absolutely fun to read, with a lot of really neat illustrations, this is one book that perhaps should not be read at night while hiding under the bed!