“My name is Arlo and I’m a vampire,” begins this sweetly spooky tale of self-discovery and affirmation. Arlo’s entire family are vampires, in fact: his mother, his father, and all 12 of his humorously named brothers.
But as Arlo thinks about himself, he realizes that his features aren’t very vampire-like. He doesn’t have sharp fangs, and his hair is thick and scraggly, not soft and straight. His parents tell him just to give it time, but Arlo is tired of waiting. Maybe the upcoming supermoon will help—it’s supposed to give monsters “extra power to be their true self.”
On the night of the supermoon, however—spoiler alert—Arlo finds himself transformed, not into a vampire but into a werewolf! His parents, brothers, and teacher all run over to congratulate him and affirm his new identity. “I am loved,” Arlo asserts at the end. “And I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be.”
The message of immediate and unconditional affirmation here is sweet and needed. The important theme, however, is lightened with gentle humor and amusing worldbuilding. (Arlo’s flosses his teeth with spider thread and puts Witches’ Goo in his hair.) The story, published by Little Bee in partnership with LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD, seems intended to be read as a queer allegory, but it could as easily be read as an allegory for any child who doesn’t fit into their family—say, a hockey player in a family of swimmers.
In fact, I think the story is best read as a more general one about finding one’s true self and receiving unconditional family support than as a specific queer analogy. Otherwise, we’d have to figure out if it’s meant to be about sexual orientation or gender identity, or if both operate similarly enough that a single analogy works for either. And as Newbery Award honoree and trans man Kyle Lukoff cautioned in a 2023 piece for Harper’s Bazaar, metaphor has its limits. He notes, “Transgender people are not imagining our way into a different species; we are simply tweaking some of the rules made up by our fellows,” and rightly insists, “Trans children deserve to know that trans people exist. Instead of having to parse themselves solely through tortured metaphors … they should also be given the descriptors that line up with how other trans people talk about themselves and, more importantly, the communities and cultures that we build and maintain by ourselves, for ourselves and each other.”
I Am NOT a Vampire is still a valuable story about self and familial acceptance in the face of difference, and that’s important. Readers (and their adults) should just be careful about drawing too many parallels with specific queer experiences, and should make sure to supplement it with other stories that show human queer characters as well.
