Middle School Bites: Out For Blood is fun, mglit want-to-read-it, incarnate

Our 12YO read Middle School Bites: Out For Blood so quickly that I thought he was trying to distract me from something else. It’s not I thought he was lying, but he got the book on Friday and had read it by Tuesday. Combine that timeframe with middle school, LEGO, Scouts video games, and something didn’t add up. He told me the plot of Out For Blood, I then read it for myself and had a similar experience, except I read it two days quicker. Apparently, I need to play more video games, buy more LEGO sets, or otherwise engage my time, or maybe not.

Middle School Bites: Out For Blood is the third book in the series by Steven Banks, with illustrations by Mark Fearing. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that we now have a middle school student and are discovering this series. Fate or karma could also be words to describe its timing for audiences in fifth grade and up. Out For Blood is mglit that weaves the lifestyle that’s perfectly suited for readers of that age. It walks the walk and talks the talk. As a result, it’s a book that runs with momentum in a manner that makes reading fun and builds up energy as it progresses.

It doesn’t matter that this is the third book in the series. While relevant events certainly happened to the characters prior to Out For Blood; it effortlessly picks up where the second book probably ended and whisks away readers who have just entered the story. Any upper elementary-aged student and up will be able to understand what’s happening and will most likely be immune to its science-fiction, humor, monster, and coming-of-age vibe.

I was talking to a werewolf. It all starts with that. From time to time I teach elementary ELA classes on essay writing and the importance of a great hook. That’s a great hook that immediately follows it up by introducing Tom Marks, the first-person narrator in Out For Blood. Tom is indeed talking to a werewolf. It’s the same one that bit him a couple of months earlier, albeit shortly after he’d been bitten by a vampire bat, as well as, a zombie in that same day.

So, he’s a Vam-Wolf-Zom who’s in middle school, but at the same time subject to the quirks and whims of any of the three creatures that bit him, plus, it’s Thanksgiving weekend. What happens in Out For Blood mirrors the real-life aspects of what a middle school student encounters. If you remove the zombie, werewolf, and vampire elements from the book any student who’s been through sixth grade will understand the book and uproariously laugh at it. There are the school projects, friendship crises, random interests, and odd family members that we all have. The already great book would simply increase in its mglit interest when you add in the monster elements.

I mention it that way because it’s not important for your upper elementary through middle school reader to know the ins and outs of the plot. Out For Blood is the kind of mglit that young readers will flock to, once they know about it. Even if they haven’t read the first two books in the series they’ll love it. If they’ve read the first two then they’ve probably already read it or are chomping at the bit to dive into it.

For young readers, this is a book that they want to read that’s smart and respects their growing intelligence and ability to comprehend a smarter level of humor. It’s bitingly funny in a way that’s sardonic, without being surly, because middle school students know everything, don’t they? Middle School Bites: Out For Blood primes the hook for people to discover the first two books, as well as, anticipating the next one, which is exactly what our 12YO asked about. “When does the next one come out”?, he posed, as I disbelievingly looked at him returning the book a mere 96 hours after I gave him the ‘most recent one’.

Middle School Bites: Out For Blood is by Steven Banks with illustrations by Mark Fearing and available on Holiday House.

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