Gr 5-8-After a breezy two-page introduction that gives the major plot points of Cirque du Freak, readers are plunged back into the world of a young, newly minted half-vampire (a concept that is never fully explained). With his mentor, the creepy full vampire Mr. Crepsley, Darren is learning the ropes of the undead. Readers quickly get a rundown of the facts, the most important one being that vampires, even half ones, must have human blood to survive, and Darren can't bring himself to drink. There is not much plot here. He and Mr. Crepsley return to the Cirque du Freak. Darren and Evra, a snake-boy, make what is ultimately a tragic friendship with a local boy named Sam and a self-proclaimed "ecowarrior" named R.V. It is R.V. who precipitates the real action as he becomes suspicious of animals disappearing from nearby farms. The first-person narration seems superficial, and there is little depth to Darren's character. That said, Shan creates heart-pounding, page-turning action that will keep kids reading. He certainly knows his horror, and this book cranks up the gore factor a notch or two. Readers will get more information about the genuinely weird denizens of the Cirque du Freak. There are some genuinely horrific, almost painful moments, particularly at the book's tragic climax. Readers will be turning from the page, sickened, and then come back to find out what happens next. The question remains, where can Shan take his readers from here? Just how far will he go?-Tim Wadham, Maricopa County Library District, Phoenix, AZ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In The Vampire's Assistant, the second installment of the series begun with Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan, the hero returns to the old-fashioned freak show where, thanks to Mr. Crespley, he became a "half-vampire." Darren once again struggles against the urge to feed upon the human blood his health requires. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr. 5-8. This sequel to the fast-paced Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare finds Darren Shan in difficult circumstances. Vampire Larten Crepsley has begun the process of turning Darren into a vampire, but is hampered by Darren's refusal to drink human blood. Feeding on small animals, Darren grows progressively weaker. Crepsley and Darren return to the traveling freak show, Cirque Du Freak, where the vampire hopes Darren will find friends among the unusual performers and finally accept his fate. Although Darren does make friends with snake-boy Evra Von, he also makes a new human friend, Sam, who is enchanted by the freak show and begs to join the troop. Chockful of wonderfully inventive details about the residents of the freak show (which includes a wolf man and the mysterious Mr. Tiny), this stand-alone sequel lacks the poignancy of Anne Rice's early vampire books published for adults, but is well suited to young readers. --Debbie Carton

The sequel to Shan's successful horror debut (not reviewed) is another guilty pleasure. Shan, the author/narrator of this putative true account, is now a "half-vampire" and the assistant to the well-meaning vampire Mr. Crepsley. Since he refuses to drink human blood, Darren is slowly dying. After exiling himself from his family and friends, he is also lonely; so he and Mr. Crepsley return to the freak show where they met. There he bonds with Evra, the reptilian snake-handler, and Sam, a precocious human boy. Unfortunately, he also gets involved with R.V., a stereotypical unwashed hippie eco-warrior, who decides to make his next cause freeing the show's animal acts. Shan won't win any literary awards for this one-Darren's voice is stilted and unconvincing, suspense is created by contrived cliffhangers, ominous foreshadowing keeps falling from the sky like anvils, and the plot is gutted by elementary scientific blunders (such as repeated references to the python's "poison"). Once Darren becomes a freak-show insider, the eerie creepiness is not so easily maintained; but Shan more than makes up for that by ladling out great glops of macabre grotesquerie: a snake-boy who can lick the inside of his own nose! Mute misshapen dwarfs who feast on human flesh! The circus performer who saws off his own limbs! Gross-out horror fans will devour it and clamor for the next in the series. (Fiction. 10-14) $250,000 ad/promo

Turned into a half-vampire in [cf2]Cirque du Freak,[cf1] Darren Shan returns with his mentor to the freak show, where heÆll have friends. Finally succumbing to his need for human blood, Darren drinks from his friend Sam after Sam is fatally attacked by the wolf-man. The first bookÆs deliciously creepy tone never resurrects itself here, and the tone and plot are plagued with jarring inconsistencies. From HORN BOOK Spring 2002, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.