SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Previews
  • Reviews
  • Manga
  • All Ages
  • Young Adult
  • Interviews
  • News

December 23, 2021 by J. Caleb Mozzocco

Garlic & the Vampire | Review

December 23, 2021 by J. Caleb Mozzocco   Leave a Comment

Garlic & the VampireGarlic & the Vampire
Writer/artist: Bree Paulsen
Quill Tree Books; $22.99

Garlic, the protagonist of Bree Paulsen’s original graphic novel Garlic & the Vampire, likes to sleep in late, and she is highly excitable and often anxious. She works at a farmer’s market, where she sells the garlic she grows to the villagers. She’s also literally garlic; her head is a big bulb of garlic with eyes and a mouth, supported by a little humanoid body.

Garlic is one of many fruit and vegetable homunculi created by the witch Agnes to help her grow things, each assigned to the bit of produce they represent.

The produce-people’s bucolic life is interrupted one day when Potato and Celery notice smoke coming from the chimney of the abandoned old castle on the mountain. Agnes tells them all that her mother said a vampire used to live there, but he disappeared over a century ago. Perhaps he has come back?

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

As they talk over what to do, Celery nominates Garlic to go confront the vampire, given that garlic is well known to ward against vampires. Everyone agrees. Despite the fact that there are bigger, stronger and braver people in her community, Garlic is naturally the best-suited to the task. Agnes outfits her little gardening helper with a tiny little stake and hammer, some magical aid and even a raven to ride to the castle on…as well as insisting that Celery go with Garlic.

As it turns out, there really is a vampire in the castle, the same one from a century ago who has returned from his decades of travel. He doesn’t need to be destroyed, however. At the risk of oversimplifying Paulsen’s quite straightforward story, he’s a friendly vampire, and one who happens to share an interest in gardening with Agnes and her produce people.

That’s the way things often go with our fears, though. They are at their scariest at first, and often it’s harder to gather one’s courage to face them than it is to actually face them. Many times, the possibilities we were most worried about turn out not to even be true, and the scary thing isn’t nearly as scary as we expected.

In that regard, Paulsen’s gentle fairy tale is a pretty perfect allegory for dealing with anxiety, and Garlic is able to conquer her fears through a combination of her own courage and sense of duty and the help of loved ones, like her supportive best friend Carrot and Agnes, the latter of whom gives her practical tools to meet her challenge.

Filed under: Graphic Novels, Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
Bree PaulsenGarlic & the Vampirequill tree books

About J. Caleb Mozzocco

J. Caleb Mozzocco is a way-too-busy freelance writer who has written about comics for online and print venues for a rather long time now. He currently contributes to Comic Book Resources' Robot 6 blog and ComicsAlliance, and maintains his own daily-ish blog at EveryDayIsLikeWednesday.blogspot.com. He lives in northeast Ohio, where he works as a circulation clerk at a public library by day.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

March 2023

Review: Victory! Stand!

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

February 2023

Insomniacs After School, vol. 1 | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

February 2023

Review: A Visit to Moscow

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

February 2023

Science Comics: The Periodic Table of Elements | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

February 2023

Review: Bomb

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Strega Nona Stamps Are Coming

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Creating a Collective Black Ancestry: Researcher Kimberly Annece Henderson Discusses Dear Yesteryear

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Review: Victory! Stand!

by Esther Keller

Heavy Medal

March suggestions: early Mock Newbery possibilities

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Book Review: Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave with illustrations by Tom de Freston

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Newbery Medalist Amina Luqman-Dawson visits The Yarn

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

13 Graphic Novels To Look Forward to in 2020 | Stellar Panels 

Top 10 Manga of 2022

First-Person Graphic Memoirs Bring Events to Life for Students

Best Graphic Novels 2019 | SLJ Best Books

Reviews and Coverage of the 2021 Eisner Award Nominations

Commenting for all posts is disabled after 30 days.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023