31 Days of Dracula- Day 12: Dracula, The Crestwood House Monsters Series

Ah, here's a bittersweet memory from childhood. I loved these books. LOVED them.
Dracula, Frankenstein.  Everyone had a book.
Orange spines from Crestwood House.

They even had a fascinating series on paranormal events- Atlantis, reincarnation, ESP, that sort of thing.

Then one day that came screeching to a halt.  One of my teachers, a math/science teacher, had contacted my mother because she was concerned for me, for my soul.  Because Satan.  These books were a gateway to Hell.

My mother tried to talk to me about it, but she was upset, and it upset me, because I thought I must have done something wrong.  I can't remember exactly how things were settled out, but I sort of stepped back from the monsters for a while.

Because in the real world, a real monster had won.  As an adult, I sort of understand where that poor, horrible woman was coming from.  Outside of school, I later learned, her son had... problems.  So she exercised control the only place she could: on a bunch of children.  She'd regularly interrupt science movies to explain why Evolution wasn't real, but dammit, there was no fucking reason for a bunch of ten year olds to know who Madeline Murray O'Hare was and why she was a threat to Democracy. (Short answer: atheist).

All I know when I think about her is she made my mother cry.  And I will never forgive her for that.

But I have moved on.  I've got a small collection of the Crestwood books.  And she's dead.

That said: These books rock.  The first part of the book, the first twenty or so pages, tells the story of the Universal film with lots of black and white photos.
Then an examination of the novel and the history of Vlad Tepes and vampires, including Elizabeth Bathory.  Next, a history of vampire movies, including a still from London After Midnight, an introduction to Christopher Lee's Hammer movies, seventies films like Blackula and Count Yorga, Vampire, as well as a look at vampires on television like The Night Stalker and Dan Curtis's Dracula.

Re-reading this, I'm amazed at how off the hook this really is:  they came out in 1977, so I would have been seven or eight... getting recommendations for movies like Yorga or Blackula, which... perhaps may not have been appropriate for the under ten crowd.

The Dracula I have has fading to the cover, like the Frankenstein on the right. I'm still looking for a sharper image with a deeper orange cover Dracula like the image on the left.