Book: Isadora Moon Goes to School, Goes Camping, Goes to the Ballet, Goes on a Field Trip, and Saves the Carnival by Harriet Muncaster
Genre: Children's books
Publisher: Random House Children's Books in the US (originally Oxford University Press)
Publication date: 2016 to 2018
Source: Print books from the library
Summary: Isadora Moon is half-vampire and half-fairy. Her dad, the vampire Count Bartholomew Moon, loves the night and red food. Her mother, the fairy Countess Cordelia Moon, loves the daytime and nature. Isadora has to find her own way and, often, she does it the company of human friends, the children in her neighborhood.
Thoughts: Isadora Moon, in spite of her unusual heritage, does many of the things that I imagine typical British children do - vacation at the beach, visit a castle on a field trip, and attend a carnival (called a 'fair' in the British edition). The books are equal parts glitter and goth. The stories aren't scary at all - well, there's that one time that a ghost shows up, but Isadora Moon finds a way to include him in the fun, too.
My favorite is Isadora Moon Goes on a Field Trip because it's a trip to a castle. I just did a search for 'castle' on my blog and got a 179 results. I like castles!
Appeal: This series is charming, without being sickly sweet. Children who like fairies and flowers, will enjoy these books. So will kids who are skeptical of fairies but intrigued by vampires.
These are meant to be chapter books for early readers, but I learned about them from a friend who used them as read-aloud books for a five-year-old. There are plenty of fun illustrations (in pink and black) to make that work well. Children will enjoy the adventures of Isadora and her friends. Adults will get a kick out of the clever ways that vampire and fairy lore are combined and made appropriate for children.
My library had the five books that I listed above. There are eleven books, so far, in the series according to the author's website. That's where I learned that Harriet Muncaster was born in Saudia Arabia, grew up in Hitchin (a market town in Hertfordshire), and currently lives in rural Bedfordshire, England.
Have you read any of the Isadora Moon books? What did you think?
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
