Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

I missed the meeting when my book club chose this book; when I heard this was what we were reading, I was not really looking forward to it.  However, I ended up liking it more than I expected.  By the same author as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, this book took a serious look at Lincoln's little-known history as a vampire slayer, as documented in some secret diaries.

What was fun about this book was that historical anecdotes were interspersed with fantasy.  I enjoyed refreshing my memory on Lincoln and the Civil War.  But just when I would get absorbed in a section around Lincoln's beliefs or his relationship with Stephen Douglas, Grahame-Smith would thrown in a connection between vampires and slavery, or would "out" a famous politician as being a vampire.  It kept me chuckling.  The book was part narrative, part excerpted from diaries, letters, and telegrams.  There were illustrations of parts of the story as well. 

Only two real complaints with the book - one is that there were a few scenes dealing with violence against slaves that felt disrespectful to read as part of a fantasy book.  The other was that the book started in a modern-day "frame" and it would have been nice to have it wrap up that way.  Other than that I enjoyed the book as a light-hearted read.  It got me thinking whether this could be used as an educational tool with middle-school aged-kids, too.