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Ma y Pa Drácula

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Mamá y Papá se parecían muchísimo. Ambos tenían cabello negro, aunque el de Papá era corto y el de Mamá tan largo que lo enrollaba varias veces alrededor de su cabeza. Sus dientes eran blancos y derechos, con dos largos y puntiagudos arriba, a los lados. Sus uñas parecían garras y sus orejas eran puntiagudas.

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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133 people want to read

About the author

Ann M. Martin

1,112 books3,055 followers
Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

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5 stars
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3 stars
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2 stars
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
Profile Image for Monica.
Author 16 books314 followers
August 2, 2019
Cómo olvidarme de este cuento que me encantaba leer cuando estaba en la primaria.
Este niño y sus padres vampiros vivían cosas muy divertidas y que al mismo tiempo de dejaban una enseñanza.
Más de una vez he pensado en ellos, ¿si durmierámos en el día y salierámos en la noche? Seguro estaríamos más pálidos todos, y muchas cosas serían muy diferentes.

Si tienen la oportunidad de leer este cuento infantil se los recomiendo. Es muy lindo y esta justo en mi corazón.
Profile Image for Josiah.
3,488 reviews158 followers
October 25, 2024
Most of Ann M. Martin's standalone novels are written with a deep sense of authenticity in the tradition of Kevin Henkes, Judy Blume, and Margaret Wise Brown. Even in a story like Ma and Pa Dracula, obviously classifiable as fantasy literature, Ann M. Martin retains her realistic view of the world and human emotions. There's no magic ending to be had in this book, no wave of a spell-caster's wand to undo all mistakes at the last minute and create a happy ending out of nothing. As wacky as the story's premise may appear at first glance, the characters in Ma and Pa Dracula are solidly grounded in the real world: genuine, caring people who put family first even when it's terribly inconvenient, and are passionate about making a good life for their loved ones no matter how hard, at times, that can be. Your average person doesn't have vampire parents, and thus never has to deal with the specific issues encountered by nine-year-old Jonathan Primave when he discovers the shocking truth about his gothic mother and father, but readers will see the same weaknesses, courage and affection in Jonathan's parents as they observe in their own. Parents are parents, no matter the extraneous details. The good ones love without ceasing and don't lose heart when boundaries suddenly move, demonstrate honesty with their kids even when it's easier to withhold some difficult truths, and know when to step back and let their children work matters out on their own, though everything within them strains to offer assistance. That's what makes Ma and Pa Dracula such a fine novel, I believe. Amidst all the humor and occasional craziness of the plot, this is a book with heart, and one can't help but feel it on a deeply personal level.

Jonathan has never spent much energy questioning his parents about their nocturnal lifestyle, or why they go out every night and leave him in the care of Mr. Saginaw, his tutor and keeper. To Jonathan, his parents' eccentricities are perfectly normal, because he hasn't been influenced by modern books, television or other media that would inform him otherwise. When Mr. Saginaw introduces Jonathan to a few works of modern literature, however, the experience opens Jonathan's eyes to the vast and diverse world outside his home, a world that generally carries out its business during daylight hours. Jonathan is so used to sleeping days and staying awake all night that learning most of the world does the opposite is a major revelation. But Jonathan's parents have never meant to lie to him, and when their son confronts them with his new knowledge and begins asking questions, they acquiesce to his desire to know the whole story. Jonathan's parents are vampires, each hundreds of years old. They wanted more than just the runaround nightlife a vampire leads, and so they decided upon adopting a boy, a real human boy they could raise as their son and love as fondly and completely as if he were biologically their own. Now Jonathan's interests are shifting toward the regular world, though, and what it has to offer a nine-year-old human, and his parents aren't enthusiastic about him joining a public school or taking on standard human hours of sleeping and waking. How often would they see their son if he changed his sleep schedule to accommodate regular school? Yet they know Jonathan is earnest in his desire to join, at least in part, the mainstream of human society, so they agree to send him to school.

Sometimes it takes a long while to adjust to new people and make friends, to find a niche where one truly belongs and can find happiness with one's peers. Jonathan, however, is granted the mercy of no such wait being required. When he meets a girl named Tobi playing near his house, the start of their friendship is immediate, and Tobi is the sort of girl unafraid to bring an unusual boy like Jonathan into the center of activity and show the other kids why he's worth having for a friend. Years of classical education under Mr. Saginaw have caused Jonathan to develop an overly formal manner of speaking, especially for a boy of nine, and despite reading more than ever these days, many modern technologies continue to elude Jonathan's comprehension. But Tobi knows just how to help Jonathan loosen up and adapt to his new environment, encouraging him to shed some of his antiquated terms and talk more like the other kids in his class. She even helps Jonathan dress more normally, ditching the formalwear for street clothes one might find any kid in America wearing.

School is going well, and Jonathan feels more engaged in life than ever before with new friends and a schedule that allows him to explore the world when it's light outside, but a big problem threatens his newfound happiness. When the location and funding for the class Halloween party fall through only days prior to the event, Jonathan's class is upset they will have to cancel the party. Impulsively, Jonathan volunteers his parents' big, scary manor to house the event, but even as he's speaking the words, he knows it's a bad idea. Jonathan and his parents have always had to move from town to town on a frequent basis, and though Jonathan spent most of his life in the dark as to why, he knows now the moves come when the local blood bank dips too low, and the nightly allotments his parents consume there become conspicuous to the staff. Now, such a short time after moving to this new town, the blood banks are already running alarmingly low, and it is only Jonathan's desperate pleas that he not be forced to move away from the only regular school and friends he's ever known that keep the family from hitting the road yet again. With his parents increasingly low on food and energy, forced to resort to sucking the blood from freshly killed animals on local roads, Jonathan feels a lingering fear of what they might do when presented with the temptation of so many young necks at the Halloween party. Is it wise to dangle such sumptuous fare before a couple of vampires enduring their worst famine in hundreds of years? But Jonathan knows his parents, and they would never attack a child. He's never felt fearful at all around them, and he's a human filled with blood like anyone else. It's silly of Jonathan to even think his parents could be capable of biting his classmates...isn't it?

As the night of the Halloween party draws near and Jonathan continues to settle into a comfortable rapport with his friends, experiencing the full sweetness of peer relationships for the first time in his life, the nagging worries about his class party don't go away. Furthermore, Jonathan is concerned about his ailing parents, who haven't had proper nourishment for some time and grow paler and weaker by the day. Having so many wonderful people and opportunities he never dreamed were available to him is a continually rejuvenating joy for Jonathan, and it has taken such a short while to form attachments to the other kids in his class, especially Tobi, but Jonathan loves his parents no less than he did back in the days when they (along with Mr. Saginaw) were his whole world. Jonathan fears for their well-being, and doesn't know where the future is about to take the four of them. But what can Jonathan do to help his parents? Can he give up everything that has come to mean so much to him these past months? Would his parents even ask him to make such a sacrifice? It's a conundrum, one the reader will feel especially strongly because of how easy it is to become invested in the people in this book, and it leads to an understated yet powerful conclusion one isn't likely to forget.

What is it about this book that so deeply affects the reader's heart? Ann M. Martin does a beautiful job painting with such short strokes a cast of warm, sincere characters one can grow to love fiercely in only a few pages, loyalty and tenderness toward them growing strong before we realize it has happened. You'll come to care about the characters in this book, to see them as friends you wouldn't consider your life complete without. And so the turn of the final page feels like the last leaf of autumn, to a degree, though you know the season's resplendent colors can never be dulled in your memory, and there's always a new beginning to look forward to with the advent of spring only a few months away. By the same token, one can flip back to page one of Ma and Pa Dracula at any time and enjoy the story over again, reliving its warm, natural humor and subtle sweetness. Not every book is capable of permanently affecting the human heart in a positive way, reminding us what is so wonderful about life even during its bittersweet moments, but Ma and Pa Dracula is just such a book, and I love it. I will always hold this book dear to my heart.

No matter the literary award, Ma and Pa Dracula would have been deserving, in my opinion, at least of serious consideration. I could easily see it as a Newbery book for 1990, probably an Honor recipient (I don't think anything was going to beat out Lois Lowry's Number the Stars for the Medal that year). I can't fathom why Ma and Pa Dracula isn't more widely known and read, because I haven't experienced a nicer book in a long time, and I know there are many other kids out there who would love it as much as I do. I would give three and a half stars to Ma and Pa Dracula, and I recommend it for every kid in the world who longs for a personally affecting, emotionally memorable story they will think back on often as something special, the kind of book that reaffirms why one reads in the first place. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Ann M. Martin, for Ma and Pa Dracula.
Profile Image for Yvensong.
914 reviews55 followers
November 16, 2013
This fun little story for young people surprised me. It was whimsical and thoughtful.

The MC is a young boy who has been living a very sheltered life which takes a radical turn when the family moves (once again) to a new home. He sneaks out and discovers the world is nothing like he had been told and that his parents are not exactly normal. These revelations affect him deeply and brings about some large changes in his life.

Even though this is fantasy, this is a poignant look at family and the continual adjustments that are made for a family to grow in love.
Profile Image for Navneet.
220 reviews107 followers
May 19, 2022
My childhood comfort book and for what reason??? Idk 💀
Profile Image for Rebecca.
1,432 reviews5 followers
October 27, 2023
This book was halfway to being wholesome and fluffy, but part of it was pretty creepy, and not because of the vampires. I was always disturbed by the fact that Jonathan was the epitome of a homeschool kid, who thinks his family’s vampirism is normal because he doesn’t know what vampirism is. The father goes to a blood bank to work, the whole family is nocturnal, and Jonathan was raised with the values of vampires who were probably turned hundreds of years ago. It is too much like a fundamentalist homeschooled upbringing.

But nevertheless, the vampires don’t feel evil. Jonathan is a good kid, even if he was way too clueless for a long time. The vampires are good parents with good intentions, and I was kind of jealous of Jonathan being nocturnal, and his tutor. Jonathan is a little sexist, being surprised that a girl named Tobi is a girl because she has short hair, but it’s the harmless kind that Jonathan will grow out of. This book is cute even if there’s a lot of logical problems with it.
Profile Image for Katelyn.
152 reviews4 followers
September 17, 2019
The premise and plot are sort of cute.... but reading this as an adult makes me uncomfortable.
The entire introduction of Tobi is highly gendered - Jonathan doesn't use any pronouns for her and yet she defensively tells him she's actually a girl .... but then proceeds to do the whole "girls are dumb and boring, boys are better" thing. The author shows us Jonathan thinks she is cool because all the boys like her and she doesn't act like a girl.

Tobi is also an awful friend for Jonathan. She consistently thinks he is stupid or calls him dumb even after he explains he has no experience with normal life. She encourages him to disregard his family rules (which, granted, are questionable themselves). She aggressively invites herself over to his house and then demands his mother take them to the mall. When in Jonathan's home she does not respect personal boundaries and feels entitled to disregard the rules.
Profile Image for Tiffany.
422 reviews4 followers
May 20, 2018
Another nostalgia read from my childhood. It's kind of silly now, but still a bit fun as well. It does work a bit too hard to be "kid-friendly" (the kid's not a vegetarian or anything, but vampires killing an animal to eat to survive would somehow be horrific?), but the overall story is kinda entertaining. Definitely a kid's book, rather than having the YA appeal to all ages, so I'm well out of the age range to benefit from it, though the fact it was a favorite of mine in early elementary school should mean something.
Profile Image for Sean Harding.
5,793 reviews33 followers
January 23, 2022
Ann M Martin heads to her more eccentric side as she writes tale of nine year old kid who discovers his parents are vampires.
Who of course don't take human life and only eat road kill, as if eating animals for blood is wrong in this tale, but eating them for meat is OK??
Also how did they adopt a child when they sleep all day?
And how is stealing blood from a blood bank any more ethical?
There are questions without answers here Ann!
This could have been fleshed out more and even been a series, but anyway, it was all average fare and a good break from BSC for the author.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Samantha.
112 reviews27 followers
April 5, 2020
This was my favorite book in 4th grade. I remember checking it out of the library repeatedly— I even dressed up as a vampire for “book character day.” I was sooo ahead of the Twilight craze. It was nostalgic reading this and funny to remember that my 9-year-old self was into fantasy stuff just like I am today 🧛🏻‍♂️🧛🏻‍♀️
Profile Image for Kate Readings.
208 reviews8 followers
July 7, 2022
Estaba buscando familia diversa y aceptación pero es una historia muy estadounidense, podría ser un capítulo de una serie de nickelodeon con risas grabadas incluidas. Me sorprende de la autora porque ya había leído El club de las niñeras y me había gustado. El niño me cayó mal por decir que en realidad ni sus padre y madre son cuando le conviene.
Profile Image for Ana Angela.
78 reviews
January 6, 2026
Mi primero libro del año ¿qué podemos decir? Empezamos ligero porque tengo muchas cosas sin terminar, así que no diría que es una lectura terrible Jon muchas veces me desespero, ya sé que solo es un niño peor vaya que los niños son complicado jaja en fin buen libro ahora a terminar It o que It termine conmigo
Profile Image for Puri.
140 reviews
September 11, 2022
De mis favoritos de la literatura infantil. Me lo dejaron en primero de secu y fue de los pocos que no me hicieron morir de flojera y aburrimiento. Lo leí mil veces después de eso, arriba los vampiros y la fantasía
Profile Image for Luis González.
435 reviews5 followers
May 1, 2024
Es un poco sencillo, con una historia simple acerca de los problemas de un niño adaptándose a una vida normal, mientras sus padres salen a alimentarse de sangre todas las noches. Y también del valor de darle importancia a la gente que te quiere y te aprecia. Está muy bonito.
Profile Image for ♡ Elena Franco ♡.
87 reviews
July 27, 2025
Este libro es de mi infancia, de cuando estaba en la primaria. Recuerdo que había un estar yo en mi libro de español y cuando compré este, creo que era igual de corto y la sorpresa que me llevé al ver que es un libro más amplio. Muy bonito cuento, con cero historia pero mucha nostalgia.
Profile Image for Alejandra García.
229 reviews58 followers
May 23, 2017
Me molestaba cada vez que decía chavos, además esperaba un final distinto
Profile Image for Luis Paredes Martínez.
271 reviews16 followers
September 21, 2018
Me gusta el tema que trata de la adopción y como se da cuenta que tiene que aceptar a sus papás como són y no hacer que elles cambien.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for LeAnna.
201 reviews5 followers
May 1, 2022
This is not great literature, but it’s fun especially for kids who like creepy themes but not real horror.
Profile Image for Gaby CR.
160 reviews
February 14, 2023
Me gustó mucho la historia, los personajes y situaciones presentadas.
Profile Image for Feern.
15 reviews
April 15, 2023
me gusto pero… Tobi realmente me desesperó muchísimo es demasiado entrometida y berrinchuda.
Profile Image for Espe.
103 reviews
January 23, 2024
Read this book with my 6yo son, it was very entertaining but none of us like the ending. Great source for new vocabulary ❤️
Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews

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