Amazon.com Review
Bitten by the word-slurping vampire Draculink, young Odilon became an ink drinker in
the book by the same name, learning to live letter-by-letter as he drank the ink from the pages of books through a straw. In his vampiric state, Odilon is now light as a feather, quiet as a pair of slippers, and sharp-eyed as a cat ("courtesy of all the books about cats I've drunk"). He's lived "a thousand lives" through the stories he's sipped, becoming an astronaut, a pirate, and a pioneer. But something's wrong: "The hard part is that I can't share my straw with anyone. I'm very lonely." This problem forces him back to Draculink's dank, dark crypt to ask the unthinkable: "Mr. Draculink, can I bite a girl so that she becomes like me?"
But when Odilon returns to the lonely, old ink drinker, he's in for a surprise--alongside Draculink's long, wooden casket, he finds a second, smaller, suspiciously Odilon-sized box. Draculink can't be planning to adopt the unwilling young ink drinker! Before Odilon can guess Draculink's intentions, however, he discovers a girl worthy of his ink-thirsty bite, the new girl in class, Carmilla, "prettier than the prettiest girl in school." ("The assignment was to draw a map of our country, with the capital and the main cities. I drew a heart instead, with a capital named Carmilla," Odilon gushes.) But when he chases her, she runs toward the cemetery... home of Draculink's crypt!
Expect more inspired weirdness from Eric Sanvoisin, as he pens the worthy follow-up to the bizarrely lovable The Ink Drinker. And Martin Matje's looming blue illustrations make for splendid drinking once again. (Ages 9 and older) --Paul Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
"Ever since my encounter with Draculink, the ink-drinking vampire, I've been drinking books like crazy," confesses Odilon, a bookstore owner's son with a literal thirst for reading. In The Ink Drinker, Sanvoisin and Matje's vampire spoof, Odilon suffered a bite on the arm from Draculink. Now, the boy cannot resist jamming a red-striped straw into books and sipping their thrilling adventures, which leaves their pages devoid of marks. "The hard part is that I can't share my straw with anyone," he laments. "I'm very lonely." Intending to ask Draculink if biting a girl would make her an inkdrinker like him, Odilon runs away in terror upon discovering a child-size casket in Draculink's cryptApresumably meant for him. Readers will soon suspect otherwise. As Odilon entertains thoughts of biting his fetchingly Gothic new classmate, Carmilla, Sanvoisin hints that she is no ordinary girl: she seems to have sucked the ink from Odilon's homework, and she heads for the cemetery when school's out. Matje styles Carmilla as a pale urchin in a black dress, the ideal person to share "a straw for two" with blond, bespectacled Odilon. This sequel's focus on amorous yearning could ward off a few of the first book's fans (adults will recognize a few sexual innuendoes), but most will get a kick out of Odilon's furtive nighttime escapades. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
