Klause returns to the steamy sensuality of her first book, The Silver Kiss (1990), for this tale of a hot-blooded teenage werewolf who falls for a human ``meat-boy.'' Grieving for her father and unimpressed by the age-mates in her pack, Vivian defies her mother and fellow lycanthropes by setting her sights on suburban poet-schoolmate Aiden Teague. It's an experiment that's doomed from the start. Vivian may look human (when she chooses), but her attitudes, instincts, and expectations are decidedly wolflike; short-tempered, direct in action and emotion, rough in love and play, shapeshifters make dangerous companions, their veneer of rationality as thin as their senses are sharp. Poor Aiden--as a prospective lover he's not so different from prey; to Vivian his smile flashes like heat lightning, and at times he looks so delicious she wants to ``bite the buttons off his shirt.'' When, after a series of sultry but frustrating dates, Vivian reveals herself to him, he responds, not with the pleasure and lust she expects, but stark terror. Extrapolating brilliantly from wolf and werewolf lore, Klause creates a complex plot, fueled by politics, insanity, intrigue, sex, blood lust, and adolescent longings, and driven by a set of vividly scary creatures to a blood-curdling climax. The werewolves' taste for risky pranks and the author's knack for double--and even triple--entendres add sly undercurrents to this fierce, suspenseful chiller. (Fiction. 12-14)

Gr 9 Up‘In the thick of her pack's leadership struggle, a 16-year-old werewolf complicates matters by falling for a human "meat-boy." A provocative exploration of a young woman's psyche in the flesh and "in her pelt." (Aug.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Preschool) Cousins's much-loved mouse Maisy appears in her usual bright, bold colors in a simple and effective counting book. The generous-sized pic-tures on white backgrounds will help children find the objects to be counted: one ladybug on the end of Maisy's nose, two flowers in front of Maisy's house, three buckles on her pirate costume....Ten fleas on an elephant pal end the count, and a final spread shows simple rows of flowers in groups of one to ten, with numbers in both numeral and word form. This eye-catching, oversized board book is simultaneously published with the less successful Maisy's Colors, whose concept is regrettably muddied, as the featured color is sometimes difficult to di (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Werewolves are kid stuff, you say. Not in the hands of Klause, whose fierce, sexy novel is a seamless, convincing blend of fantasy and reality that can be read as feminist fiction, smoldering romance, a rites-of-passage story, or a piercing reflection on human nature.

Sixteen-year-old Vivian isn't fiction's most likable heroine, and not only because she's a werewolf. She's preoccupied with admiring her own "full breasts, small waist [and] tawny hair." She's viciously competitive with other girls, gloating, "Look at me.... I've got him. You don't. Too bad." Her pack, temporary leaderless and dislocated after the death of her father, is living in some low-rent Maryland suburbs. Expected to mate with one of the rowdy, blood-hungry werewolves her own age, Vivian rejects them as well as 24-year-old Gabriel, who flirts with her aggressively as he prepares to assume leadership of the pack. Instead, she nourishes a crush on a "meat boy" (human) from school, a retro-hippie poet-type who professes a yen for the supernatural. With the darkly sexy prose and suspenseful storytelling that gave such luster to The Silver Kiss, Klause lures readers into the politics of the pack, their forbidden desire for human flesh and the coming of age of their future queen. Though some readers may be alienated by Vivian's self-absorption, and others shocked by her eventual union with Gabriel, most will find this sometimes bloody tale as addictive as chocolate. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Vivian is a hot-blooded, teenaged werewolf, torn between the sweetness of her "meat boy" Aiden and the heat of Gabriel, the new leader of their pack of loups garoux. Why It Is Great: Ten years before Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, Klause made readers swoon with her tales of teen vampires and werewolves in love. Her first novel, The Silver Kiss (1992), used vampires as a metaphor for death and grief. Lovely stuff. Why It Is for Us: Blood and Chocolate is, on one level, an unironic feminist manifesto. With her sexual self-confidence and sensual description of werewolf physicality, Vivian is the anti-Bella some Twilight fans are looking for. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.