The spooky aspects of Children of the Night would be an excellent topic for Halloween season, with a look at the psychological uses and appeals of creatures-from-beyond like the gaki and the psychic vampire. The heroine's psychic gifts and responsibilities, and their relation to ordinary life, might be a focus for another approach. This is likely to be as popular as it is controversial.

Questions with larger social or literary implications might include the changing elements of popular suspense fiction. Leaders may also want to compare Children of the Night with more traditional horror and mystery novels, to illuminate changes in the structure and themes of these genres. An increasing number of cross-genre mysteries are being published, with sleuths and plot structures that defy the previous mystery formulas.

1. Diana Tregarde was "called" to be a Guardian because of her psychic strengths, yet the showdown with the...