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Fangs #1
Vampire Cats
Tiffany is devastated when her best friend Richie moves away, but things start to look up when she adopts a mysterious stray cat she names Blackjack. Little does she know that Blackjack is Richie--he's come back as a mischievous vampire cat!
116 pages, Paperback
First published August 20, 1996
27 people want to read
About the author
Carol Ellis
93 books92 followersCarol Ellis is an American author of young adult and children’s fiction. Her first novel, My Secret Admirer, was published in 1989 by Scholastic as part of their popular Point Thriller line.
She went on to write over fifteen novels, including a few titles in the Zodiac Chillers series published by Random House in the mid-1990s, and two titles in The Blair Witch Files series for young adults, published by Bantam between 2000 and 2001.
She went on to write over fifteen novels, including a few titles in the Zodiac Chillers series published by Random House in the mid-1990s, and two titles in The Blair Witch Files series for young adults, published by Bantam between 2000 and 2001.
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September 21, 2024
THE WORKS OF CAROL ELLIS, 1945-2022
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
My mother, Carol Ellis, passed away on November 5th, 2022. While she'd been retired for some time, she spent years making her living as an author for children and young adults. When I was a kid, I was tremendously proud of her status as a writer, but she always seemed vaguely embarrassed by it. As I grew older, she told me she didn't enjoy the process of writing, and I'm sure that was part of the problem but there was also something deeper. My mother was an extremely self-deprecating person, inclined to critique herself to a fault. As such, I think she was uncomfortable with her public status. Also, as an avid reader herself, I think she decided early on she would never measure up to the books and authors she admired. It saddened and confused me to hear her dismiss her writing and, from time to time, even become cynical about the whole concept of telling stories. This never lasted very long because she enjoyed reading too much, but it was still depressing. Later on, I would occasionally try to change her perspective by pointing out the long and (in my view) proud tradition of popular fiction authors, people who, yes, wrote largely for money but gave years of joy to millions of readers. She would just shrug and say something like "Sure, but I wasn't even that good." Even in the past few years, when I would tell her how so many people online would respond with comments like "Oh wow, I LOVED your mom's books growing up!" if I mentioned her in a comment to a post or video, she would brush it off. "Doesn't it make you happy, knowing people still like your work?," I'd ask. She'd shrug or look away and reply, "Sure, I guess so."
Despite her indifference, my mother's career as a YA and children's author was substantial. A conservative estimate would put the number of books she wrote or co-wrote somewhere north of 50, and there were shorter works as well. She's best remembered as a fixture of Scholastic's Point Thriller line from the late 80s to the mid 90s, but her work ranged over several genres and publishers, her career lasting from the late 1970s till 2017; in the weeks following her death, I started discovering material she never even mentioned to me.
Through the years, despite sharing my mother's passion for reading, I rarely read her work. While she didn't exactly come out and say so, it was pretty clear she'd prefer I not. There were occasional exceptions and, towards the end of her career, I sometimes assisted her, both as a researcher and as an uncredited co-author. But her main body of work seemed like something she didn't want to get into much, so I largely avoided it. Now I've lost her forever and, partially to distract myself from the grief but also to try and create some sort of memorial to her, I've decided to read through her works and comment on them here.
As I mentioned, my mother's writing career was extensive. A large portion of her work was ghostwriting for others and even a fair amount under her own name were series works where she was more less told what to write. There were also nonfiction works which were pretty tightly controlled by the editors as well. While I know she gave every project her all (no matter how little she enjoyed some of them) and no doubt put her stamp on all she wrote, I'm primarily interested in the peak of her career, that is novels written under her own name and over which she had at least some degree of artistic control. This comes out to 20 or so books. While I have most of these works, there are still some I'll have to search for online and in used bookstores.
There's no point in pretending these "reviews" will be objective. All the books will get 5 stars, although I will be honest about elements of my mom's work I don't care for. Mixed in with my comments on the books will be memories of the creation of those I was old enough to be aware of, memories of my mother and her thoughts and comments on the books, and thoughts about the culture and industry that shaped her career.
I have no illusions that my mother was some sort of literary genius. But her work touched many readers nonetheless. She was also an incredible human being, one of the kindest people anyone could hope to meet. I will miss her terribly for the rest of my life. My hope is these commentaries will act as a tribute to her and bring back some good memories for those who grew up with her work, just as they preserve some cherished memories for me of a very cherished person.
VAMPIRE CATS
This novel was the start of the last attempt (of several) my mother made to launch her own line of books. Like all of them, it sadly failed. I believe this was part of a contract she had with Random House, which she seemed to be working with quite a bit towards the end of her main career as an author, as opposed to Scholastic, her publishers for most of her prime writing years. Random House tried to launch two lines around my mom, first the Zodiac Chillers for teenagers, closely imitating Scholastic's famous Point Horror line (of which my mom was a mainstay), and then the Fangs line of vampire novels (of which "Vampire Cats" was the first) for younger readers. My guess would be that, similar to the Zodiac Chillers, the plan was for my mother to start the line, then have other authors come in, and my mom might return at various points later on. Unfortunately, the Fangs line flopped even worse than the Zodiac Chillers, with only two titles appearing (both written by my mom) before the whole concept was abandoned. Copies of both Fangs books are now quite scarce. A look at the back pages of "Vampire Cats" reveals Random House was clearly trying a lot of concepts out in 1996. There are advertisements for no less than five book lines and series, none of which (aside from the Zodiac Chillers) I remember even hearing about, let alone seeing in a bookstore.
Also tying Fangs to the Zodiac Chillers are the elaborate promotional and design efforts. In the back pages, the Zodiac Chillers offered readers the chance to win a Zodiac pendant; the Fangs books advertised a story idea contest. Winners could send in a picture of themselves that would be computer generated into looking like a vampire. (I think the Zodiac prize is cooler but, just as with the pendant, I would LOVE to know if anyone ever got their picture vampirized.) And while the Zodiac Chillers had really good covers, the Fangs books had genuinely incredible cover art by Mark Garro. Honestly these are some of the best covers I've ever seen for books of this type, genuinely eye-popping, and I've been meaning to look up more of Mr. Garro's work. Bottom line, clearly a lot went into these books, which makes it even more depressing that they had almost no impact. But such is life!
My own memories of the Fangs books mainly stem from being asked to help provide vampire lore. I've been a big vampire fan for as long as I can remember, and my parents actively sought my help on that aspect of these books. I didn't contribute any story details but I was definitely an adviser. My mother had always encouraged my love of vampires, ghosts and etc. but rarely shared it herself. Her main interest in the first of these two books was the cat element, which she and my father came up with as a way to make the process more enjoyable. My mother was a feline devotee (as is my father), something she and I shared throughout our entire life together. Any opportunity to write about cats was a delight to her. She wasn't enjoying much about writing by this time so I'm sure that helped at least a little bit.
I've written before that my mother was primarily a writer for teenagers, and that she sometimes felt hesitant and restrained writing for younger readers. That, and her usual lack of enthusiasm for the supernatural, made me wonder what “Vampire Cats” would be like. Certainly I knew my mom always approached these projects like the pro she was, but I wondered if there might be a faint listlessness about the book, perhaps also due to it coming from a period when her interest in her career was on the wane. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth! As a cat and vampire lover, I'm particularly proud to say that “Vampire Cats” is a great deal of gently wicked fun, and an honorable contribution to the vampire subgenre. While things are naturally softened due to the target audience, I was especially happy to see that the vampires in the book are properly Gothic and threatening, not moody and whiny like...well, we won't get into that. Suffice it to say that if you prefer your vampires with more bite (hehe) and less moaning, you might be surprised to find that this 1996 book aimed at preteens actually delivers the goods.
Another great aspect of “Vampire Cats” was how my mother dealt with the darker undercurrents of the story. This was intriguing because, as I've written before in these reviews, a number of my mom's books touch on some pretty disturbing areas but she, and no doubt many of her colleagues, was restricted by the youth of the target audience and (even more significantly) the publishers' nervousness about how these books would be received by kids and their parents. Sometimes this created awkwardness, with the story clearly hamstrung by not being able to confront what it's really about. Surprisingly, since the book was aimed at younger readers rather than teenagers, “Vampire Cats” pulls off this balancing act very well. The protagonist, Tiffany, is shown confronting loneliness, emotional abuse, and animal cruelty in ways that are honest and empathy-inducing, but without crossing any lines of appropriateness. The approach reminds me of the classic Nickelodeon show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?,” of which I was a huge fan as a kid. I'm not sure if my mom ever saw an episode, but she certainly endured a lot descriptions of it from me. Whether or not there was actual direct influence, anyone who has seen that show will know the vibe I'm talking about.
All in all, “Vampire Cats” is top notch. It deserved a better fate and, should you be lucky enough to come across a copy, definitely sink your fangs into it!
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
My mother, Carol Ellis, passed away on November 5th, 2022. While she'd been retired for some time, she spent years making her living as an author for children and young adults. When I was a kid, I was tremendously proud of her status as a writer, but she always seemed vaguely embarrassed by it. As I grew older, she told me she didn't enjoy the process of writing, and I'm sure that was part of the problem but there was also something deeper. My mother was an extremely self-deprecating person, inclined to critique herself to a fault. As such, I think she was uncomfortable with her public status. Also, as an avid reader herself, I think she decided early on she would never measure up to the books and authors she admired. It saddened and confused me to hear her dismiss her writing and, from time to time, even become cynical about the whole concept of telling stories. This never lasted very long because she enjoyed reading too much, but it was still depressing. Later on, I would occasionally try to change her perspective by pointing out the long and (in my view) proud tradition of popular fiction authors, people who, yes, wrote largely for money but gave years of joy to millions of readers. She would just shrug and say something like "Sure, but I wasn't even that good." Even in the past few years, when I would tell her how so many people online would respond with comments like "Oh wow, I LOVED your mom's books growing up!" if I mentioned her in a comment to a post or video, she would brush it off. "Doesn't it make you happy, knowing people still like your work?," I'd ask. She'd shrug or look away and reply, "Sure, I guess so."
Despite her indifference, my mother's career as a YA and children's author was substantial. A conservative estimate would put the number of books she wrote or co-wrote somewhere north of 50, and there were shorter works as well. She's best remembered as a fixture of Scholastic's Point Thriller line from the late 80s to the mid 90s, but her work ranged over several genres and publishers, her career lasting from the late 1970s till 2017; in the weeks following her death, I started discovering material she never even mentioned to me.
Through the years, despite sharing my mother's passion for reading, I rarely read her work. While she didn't exactly come out and say so, it was pretty clear she'd prefer I not. There were occasional exceptions and, towards the end of her career, I sometimes assisted her, both as a researcher and as an uncredited co-author. But her main body of work seemed like something she didn't want to get into much, so I largely avoided it. Now I've lost her forever and, partially to distract myself from the grief but also to try and create some sort of memorial to her, I've decided to read through her works and comment on them here.
As I mentioned, my mother's writing career was extensive. A large portion of her work was ghostwriting for others and even a fair amount under her own name were series works where she was more less told what to write. There were also nonfiction works which were pretty tightly controlled by the editors as well. While I know she gave every project her all (no matter how little she enjoyed some of them) and no doubt put her stamp on all she wrote, I'm primarily interested in the peak of her career, that is novels written under her own name and over which she had at least some degree of artistic control. This comes out to 20 or so books. While I have most of these works, there are still some I'll have to search for online and in used bookstores.
There's no point in pretending these "reviews" will be objective. All the books will get 5 stars, although I will be honest about elements of my mom's work I don't care for. Mixed in with my comments on the books will be memories of the creation of those I was old enough to be aware of, memories of my mother and her thoughts and comments on the books, and thoughts about the culture and industry that shaped her career.
I have no illusions that my mother was some sort of literary genius. But her work touched many readers nonetheless. She was also an incredible human being, one of the kindest people anyone could hope to meet. I will miss her terribly for the rest of my life. My hope is these commentaries will act as a tribute to her and bring back some good memories for those who grew up with her work, just as they preserve some cherished memories for me of a very cherished person.
VAMPIRE CATS
This novel was the start of the last attempt (of several) my mother made to launch her own line of books. Like all of them, it sadly failed. I believe this was part of a contract she had with Random House, which she seemed to be working with quite a bit towards the end of her main career as an author, as opposed to Scholastic, her publishers for most of her prime writing years. Random House tried to launch two lines around my mom, first the Zodiac Chillers for teenagers, closely imitating Scholastic's famous Point Horror line (of which my mom was a mainstay), and then the Fangs line of vampire novels (of which "Vampire Cats" was the first) for younger readers. My guess would be that, similar to the Zodiac Chillers, the plan was for my mother to start the line, then have other authors come in, and my mom might return at various points later on. Unfortunately, the Fangs line flopped even worse than the Zodiac Chillers, with only two titles appearing (both written by my mom) before the whole concept was abandoned. Copies of both Fangs books are now quite scarce. A look at the back pages of "Vampire Cats" reveals Random House was clearly trying a lot of concepts out in 1996. There are advertisements for no less than five book lines and series, none of which (aside from the Zodiac Chillers) I remember even hearing about, let alone seeing in a bookstore.
Also tying Fangs to the Zodiac Chillers are the elaborate promotional and design efforts. In the back pages, the Zodiac Chillers offered readers the chance to win a Zodiac pendant; the Fangs books advertised a story idea contest. Winners could send in a picture of themselves that would be computer generated into looking like a vampire. (I think the Zodiac prize is cooler but, just as with the pendant, I would LOVE to know if anyone ever got their picture vampirized.) And while the Zodiac Chillers had really good covers, the Fangs books had genuinely incredible cover art by Mark Garro. Honestly these are some of the best covers I've ever seen for books of this type, genuinely eye-popping, and I've been meaning to look up more of Mr. Garro's work. Bottom line, clearly a lot went into these books, which makes it even more depressing that they had almost no impact. But such is life!
My own memories of the Fangs books mainly stem from being asked to help provide vampire lore. I've been a big vampire fan for as long as I can remember, and my parents actively sought my help on that aspect of these books. I didn't contribute any story details but I was definitely an adviser. My mother had always encouraged my love of vampires, ghosts and etc. but rarely shared it herself. Her main interest in the first of these two books was the cat element, which she and my father came up with as a way to make the process more enjoyable. My mother was a feline devotee (as is my father), something she and I shared throughout our entire life together. Any opportunity to write about cats was a delight to her. She wasn't enjoying much about writing by this time so I'm sure that helped at least a little bit.
I've written before that my mother was primarily a writer for teenagers, and that she sometimes felt hesitant and restrained writing for younger readers. That, and her usual lack of enthusiasm for the supernatural, made me wonder what “Vampire Cats” would be like. Certainly I knew my mom always approached these projects like the pro she was, but I wondered if there might be a faint listlessness about the book, perhaps also due to it coming from a period when her interest in her career was on the wane. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth! As a cat and vampire lover, I'm particularly proud to say that “Vampire Cats” is a great deal of gently wicked fun, and an honorable contribution to the vampire subgenre. While things are naturally softened due to the target audience, I was especially happy to see that the vampires in the book are properly Gothic and threatening, not moody and whiny like...well, we won't get into that. Suffice it to say that if you prefer your vampires with more bite (hehe) and less moaning, you might be surprised to find that this 1996 book aimed at preteens actually delivers the goods.
Another great aspect of “Vampire Cats” was how my mother dealt with the darker undercurrents of the story. This was intriguing because, as I've written before in these reviews, a number of my mom's books touch on some pretty disturbing areas but she, and no doubt many of her colleagues, was restricted by the youth of the target audience and (even more significantly) the publishers' nervousness about how these books would be received by kids and their parents. Sometimes this created awkwardness, with the story clearly hamstrung by not being able to confront what it's really about. Surprisingly, since the book was aimed at younger readers rather than teenagers, “Vampire Cats” pulls off this balancing act very well. The protagonist, Tiffany, is shown confronting loneliness, emotional abuse, and animal cruelty in ways that are honest and empathy-inducing, but without crossing any lines of appropriateness. The approach reminds me of the classic Nickelodeon show “Are You Afraid of the Dark?,” of which I was a huge fan as a kid. I'm not sure if my mom ever saw an episode, but she certainly endured a lot descriptions of it from me. Whether or not there was actual direct influence, anyone who has seen that show will know the vibe I'm talking about.
All in all, “Vampire Cats” is top notch. It deserved a better fate and, should you be lucky enough to come across a copy, definitely sink your fangs into it!
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April 11, 2013great
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