Thirsty

Anderson, M.T. (1997).  Thirsty.  Cambridge, MA:  Candlewick Press.  Chris is a high school student who is undergoing changes in puberty.   Some of these changes include a hunger for blood.  He suspects he is becoming a vampire, but he tries to keep it to himself because vampires are lynched and killed.  He also knows that his town performs a yearly ritual that keeps a powerful drug lord imprisoned in the town’s reservoir.  He meets a celestial being, Chet, who makes promises that he will cure him if he puts the Arm of Moriator with Tch’muchgar, the vampire lord, so he will no longer be able to escape, but Chet betrays him.  He really was working for the vampire lord.  Lolli is a young vampire who keeps her identity secret.  In a vampire initiation party, Lolli kills a high school student.  She is later hit by a car and is captured by the town’s people and they take turns stabbing her to death. Chris does not want this fate so he fears that his parents might find out.  He does not believe his mother would turn him in but he remembers that when a little bird is touched by a human, the mother pecks him to death.  He saw some boys kill the little bird instead to show it “mercy.”  We are left wondering if Chris' mother would actually turn him in and if he would finally end his “thirst.”  Think this book is geared more towards high school age boys.  The story proved to be very interesting, but I would not use it with the students in the classroom setting because of the gore, and it might get parents upset.  In this book, we see examples of physical development  in Chris since he is undergoing puberty, but his changes include turning in to a vampire.