A Creepy Case of Vampires

Deborah Dowson is a Canadian children’s librarian living in Powell,
Ohio.

The quirky Quark siblings, Kevin and Tina, and their level-headed
associate Giles Barnes are getting into more madcap adventures in these
latest additions to the Barnes and the Brains series.

In A Creepy Case of Vampires, Kevin and Giles can’t help but come to
the conclusion that a black-caped figure in the tower of the church is a
vampire. On further investigation, they discover that the church tower
has been infested with bats, which are creating an awful nuisance for
the priest and the congregation. A visiting professor explains that the
bats are simply looking for a new home. Barnes realizes that driving
them away isn’t a very good solution. Instead, he builds them new bat
houses and with Tina’s invention to entice them, the bats are soon
happily relocated. However, the reader is left wondering if the
professor isn’t just a little too batty.

In A Weird Case of Super-Goo, it seems that Giles is finished with the
“genius business” forever. Tina’s latest invention has left him
with flaming orange hair and he is so furious that he wants nothing more
to do with the Quarks. Then his Aunt Lillian comes for a visit and
concocts a wrinkle cream that literally takes years off her life.
“Little” Aunt Lillian becomes impossible to deal with and Giles has
no choice but to ask Tina and Kevin to help him return her to her
natural age. Their teamwork is a spectacular success and Barnes decides
to get back into the genius business after all.

These stories are extremely entertaining and entirely satisfying. No
matter how absurd the action becomes, the resolution contains a strong
dose of common sense and good judgment. They are both highly
recommended.