Sink Your Teeth Into Pete -- Jennie

There are swarms of vampires in the Young Adult section of Barnes and Noble: good vampires, bad vampires, prophetic vampires, romantic ones.

Who knew that bloodsucking would become so literarily lucrative?

Among the bats are dragons, too, mostly about existing as the last living fire-breathers. The covers are shiny and scaly, with shadows inside the dragon’s eyes or eggs.

And then there is the smut – the best-selling chronicles of cliquey/mean/rich teens who (and I’m sorry to even have to write it here) have sex in airplane restrooms.

These are the options our young readers have when browsing the bookshelves. No wonder they say, “There’s nothing I want to read.”

Frankly, there’s not much I want my kids to read.

But there is Pete Hautman.

Raise the roof, readers and parents! Pete Hautman can write! His novels are diverse and well-crafted, with – get this – no airplane sex. Hautman won the National Book Award for Godless, a thin tome about a middle-American group of teens who create their own religion. It has all the elements of a sophisticated novel: originality, irony, and multi-dimensional characters. Hautman urges his readers to think.

Remember when all books did that?

Another Hautman fave is Rash, a futuristic and extreme look at America’s safety-obsession. The thriller is scary and sad and often hilarious. And again, it is very thought-provoking.

Of course, Hautman did drum up one story about a vampire: Sweet-blood. But it has, of course, a spin. You can see for yourself what it is.

Mr. Hautman has been spitting out a book every year or two for what he calls on his “Ugly-But-Informative” website a “long” time.

Check him out at petehautman.com.

There are even tips for writers. I’m lacing up my running shoes to try the second part of Number Eight right now.