Vampires have had their day in the sun. Zombies are resting in peace. The new it-girls in supernatural romance seems to be bionic women. [Possible spoilers appear below; and, okay, to be fair, they're not all robots, but I do sense a trend. And just for fun, Freaks & Geeks fans, click here.]

Cinder (Feiwel, 2012) — Marissa Meyer’s Cinderella-meets-sci-fi adventure — helped kick things off. “With no memory of her life before becoming a cyborg, teenage Linh Cinder (who lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters) is forced to earn the family’s living as a mechanic,” begins Cindy Ritter’s Fall 2012 Horn Book Guide review (excerpted from her January/February 2012 Horn Book Magazine review). Clearly this young lady ain’t Walt Disney’s cinder-sweeper, and the Lunar Chronicles series started off with a bang, earning Meyer a spot on the New York Times Bestseller List and giving robot grrrls everywhere a fresh new voice.

Rachel Cohn, coauthor (with David Levithan) of such emo-teen hits as Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (Knopf, 2006), Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (Knopf, 2007), and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (Knopf, 2010) forges into sci-fi territory with her new book Beta (Hyperion, 2012; check out the book trailer here). The main character, Elysia, a teenage clone for sale at the mall, starts living the high life after being purchased by the governor’s wife. As the story goes on, Elysia begins to question everything she thinks she knows — or has been programmed to believe.

Unremembered by Jessica Brody (Farrar, 2013) begins with the main character floating alone in the ocean, apparently the only survivor of a plane crash. She has no memory of who she is or what just happened [NB: girls with amnesia are another YA trend]. Back on land, she becomes a celebrity; a foster family takes her in, and a mysterious boy, who claims he knows her, starts appearing everywhere. Without going any further with spoilers, take a look again at the title of this post. Also? Are there ever any biotech/pharmaceutical companies in YA fiction that aren’t evil? (Same goes for real-estate developers.) Check out the U.S. and U.K. galley covers on the author’s website.

No spoilers here: from the back cover of the galley of Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza (Harper/Tegan, 2013): “Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was supposed to forget her past — that she was built in a secret computer lab and programmed to do things real people would never do. Now she has no choice but to run. The only thing she can’t escape is who she is and what she’s becoming.” ‘Nuff said.

The protagonist of Eve & Adam by Michael Grant and Katherine Applegate suffers a horrible car accident. Thanks to her (*ahem* evil) pharmaceutical-company-exec mom’s shady products, Evening (called Eve) is miraculously healed. Still under observation, Eve is bored; she passes the time by working on Mom’s project to “design the perfect boy,” manipulating DNA in order to create flawless eighteen-year-old male specimen Adam. A loner boy aptly named Solo, nonperfect and human, forms the third arm of the story’s sci-fi love triangle.

YA authors: Kelly LeBrock called; she wants a royalty. And what’s next: sentient mannequins?

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Could this be a new trend? Regal YA? I hope the royals aren’t limited to the Midwest though—I, for one, wouldn’t mind The Prince of Boston, starring Prince Harry of Wales, to come into the offices…

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As Bertha Mahony Miller might have said:  WTF?

Was this a sequel to our newly-crowned Newbery?  If so, how come we’d never heard any advance word about it? The confusion continued when we lifted out the next book:

Fortunately, we then found the paperwork that accompanied these books, sent by a new publisher, Hexwood Books.  According to their press release:

Newbery winners? 

Critics, librarians, and teachers love them.

Kids?  Not so much.

As demonstrated by the popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilght” series, kids today want to read stories about sexy vampires…stories about fangs poised above the neck of a young innocent…stories about blood slowly seeping into the bodice of a white ruffled nightgown.  Our new series, “Vamped-up Newberys” will satisfy both young people and their teachers – featuring the plots  and characters of your favorite award-winning novels, slightly altered to include today’s most popular subject matter among young people: vampires!

The first five volumes in the series are based on the 2012 winner DEAD END IN NORVELT, last year’s winner MOON OVER MANIFEST, 2007’s THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY, JACOB HAVE I LOVED (1981) and that classic from 1945, JOHNNY TREMAIN. 

Take a look at this series.  Share the novels with a kid you love.  Then tell us what you think.  We’d love to hear from you!

Passing the volumes around the office, we began to compare the “Vamped-up” editions with the original books.  Although a good 80% of the content – prose, characters, dialogue – is virtually identical between original and “altered” versions, each of the Hexwood Books has been modified to somehow include vampires.

Remember the sibling rivalry between Sara Louise and Caroline in Jacob Have I Loved?  It’s still there, but now the sisters are feuding vampires:

Johnny Tremain is now a Revolutionary War lad with iron-enriched blood being fought over by two covens of  beautiful and sexy vampires:

And “Lucky” is now “Sucky,” a young vampire who wants to change her ways:

As an example of how the texts have been “vamped-up,” here are the opening paragraphs of the original Higher Power of Lucky:

Lucky Trimble crouched in a wedge of shade behind the Dumpster.  Her ear near a hole in the paint-chipped wall of Hard Pan’s Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Center, she listened as Short Sammy told the story of how he hit rock bottom.  How he quit drinking and found his Higher Power.  Short Sammy’s story, of all the rock-bottom stories Lucky had heard at twelve-step anonymous meetings – alcoholics, gamblers, smokers, and overeaters – was still her favorite.

Sammy told of the day when  he drunk a half gallon of rum listening to Johnny Cash all morning in his parked ’62 Cadillac, then fallen out of the car when he saw a rattlesnake on the passenger seat biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

 Here are the same paragraphs in the Hexwood edition:

Young vampire Sucky Trimble crouched in a wedge of shade behind the Dumpster.  Her  pointy ear near a hole in the paint-chipped wall of Hard Pan’s Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Center, she listened as Short Sammy told the story of how he hit rock bottom.  How he quit drinking blood and found his Higher Power.  Short Sammy’s story, of all the rock-bottom stories Sucky had heard at twelve-step anonymous meetings – alcoholics, gamblers, smokers, and reformed vampires – was still her favorite.

Sammy told of the night  when  he drunk a half gallon of plasma listening to Johnny Gash in his parked ’62 hearse, then fallen out of the car when he saw a fellow vampire on the passenger seat biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.

Finding the entire “Vamped-up” enterprise a little . . . bizarre, I made a call to Peyton Millman, publisher of  Hexwood Books.  Here is part of our interview:

RS:  WTF?

PM (chuckling): You’re not the first editor from a review magazine to call today, Roger.

RS:  I’m almost at a loss for words.  Many, many Newbery winners are popular and very much loved by children.  Did you really think this kind of gimmick was necessary?

PM:  Well, it appeared to us that there was quite a gap between the books kids are SUPPOSED to read and what they WANT to read.  Why not make the books more appealing–you know, add some chocolate frosting to the Brussels sprout to make it go down a little better.  And what better way to do it than with  vampires?

RS:   I don’t know how you were allowed to alter the texts of copyrighted works.

PM:  We’re marketing these books as parodies…satires.  And the right to parody is protected by law in this country.  If not, what would happen to shows like Saturday Night Live and publications such as Mad Magazine?

RS:  Does that include the right to use the original dustjacket illustrations with only slight variations?

PM:  Let me ask you a question:  when Saturday Night Live spoofs a movie, don’t the performers dress up just like the characters in that movie?  Well, we’re dressing up our books the same way.  And  we make it very clear that these books are satires.

RS:  Where is that made clear?

PM (chuckling):  On the inside back panel of the dustjacket in a very readable six point font.

RS:  Aren’t you worried that some people will buy your editions thinking they are getting the original Newbery winner?

PM (chuckling):  It happens, it happens.  In fact, based on recent sales, it seems to happen a lot.

RS:  So this has been a successful venture?

PM:  We’re already preparing several more volumes in the Vamped-up series for publication:  Bitty, Her First Hundred Thousand Years; When You Leech Me; It’s Like This, Bat; and we’re doing a Christopher Paul Curtis double volume containing Blood, Not Bloody and The Watsons Go to Transylvania, 1363.

RS:  Any plans to branch out?

PM:  Absolutely.  We’re ready to reach out to a younger audience with The Bat in the Hat and Good Bite Moon.  Instead of “an old lady whispering hush,” she’ll be “an old lady who makes your blood gush.”

RS:  That’s disgusting.

PM:  And of course my dream is to vamp-up the  Laura Ingalls Wilder books with Ma and Pa as nomadic vampires.  Now we  know why Pa always called Laura “half-pint.”

The “Vamped-up Newbery” series will NOT be reviewed in the  pages of the Horn Book Magazine, but the books will be available at most retailers beginning April 1.

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Now they’re fashion-forward for summer 2012.

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Is this a new trend, or is it just coincidence that multiple Ripper books have been released lately? Barry Lyga’s new book I Hunt Killers (Little, Brown, April) seems to take some cues from the popular TV show Dexter. Perhaps these Ripper books are inspired by the show as well. Any other idea about what’s sparking this newfound interest in the notorious Whitechapel serial killer?

Are books about serial killers the successors to the paranormal craze? The children’s book market can be as methodical yet unpredictable as Jack himself was—I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Do you know of other Ripper books in the pipeline?

The post Ripperology: Saucy Jack is back appeared first on The Horn Book.

From the last Guide:

Apparently, the heroine of a paranormal YA romance must be an extra-pale, blue-eyed brunette with her hair in her (partial) face—at least, if I’m going to review it.

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P.S. Now I’m remembering Susan Dove Lempke’s story about this snooty mom coming in after Kate’s Newbery was announced, and requesting “The Tale of Day-Pehrr-Rehhrrr.” (I know my phonetic fake French is bad but so was hers.)

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