Juvenile Fiction
In this coming-of-age fairy tale, a witch apprentice from Salem discovers that she is the great-granddaughter of Dracula from Transylvania – Maria Dracula - and, with his help, she battles a cruel regime and frees his fantastic country, Rondelia.
"Maria Dracula is truly an imaginative story. It has - just about - every magical exercise devised. Well-written, the narrative speeds along from one conflict to another. Somewhat gruesome in spots, a young student who hunkers down with the book will find action galore and a satisfying ending - with clues to a sequel. . . . Each chapter is fronted by a lovely ink-sketched illustration."
Nancy Ferrell
(1992 judge for the Golden Kite Award, reviewing more than 700 juvenile books; 1984 reviewer of children's books for the School Library Journal; reviewer for the Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators)
This is a revised second edition, 2007. (The first edition was published in 2005 by iUniverse, in the Editor's Choice Series.)
A member of the Authors Guild of America, Alice is the author of a monograph on Romanian arts, popular culture, and everyday life, Fragmented Identities published by Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, 2007. In June 2005, the actors of the Fountain Theater in Los Angeles read scenes from her surrealist/absurdist play, Voyage to the Moon. Alice has also published in the U.S. her father's child Holocaust memoir The Violinist (see below).
Angela Ursillo, whose work can be seen in the movies Lord of the Rings and King Kong, signs the illustrations and book cover.
A previous version of Maria Dracula is a finalist in ForeWord Magazine's 2005 Book of the Year Award contest, in juvenile fiction.
In 2007 Maria Dracula is published in Romania by one of the most prestigious publishers of children's literature and textbooks, Editura Didactica si Pedagogica from Bucharest.
Maria Dracula features as compulsory reading in the Syllabus for the English class at Milwood Elementary School in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Maria Dracula featured in the February 9, 2006 issue of The New York Review of Books.
Maria Dracula featured at the leading children's publishing event: The Bologna Children's Book Fair 43rd edition, Bologna, Italy, March 27-30, 2006.
Maria Dracula was on display at BookExpo America, the largest book publishing event in America, in Washington, D.C., May 19-21 2006.
Maria Dracula was on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Frankfurt, Germany, October 4-8, 2006.
Maria Dracula is a registered trademark with the United States Patents and Trademarks Office.
Buy Maria Dracula from Amazon.com. (Maria Dracula is also available in Kindle edition.)
This is the second, revised edition, published on July 15, 2007. The first edition was published in 2005 by iUniverse.
