A Lighter and Softer take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the All Ages series is a part novel, part graphic novel (think the Scholastic's "Jedi Academy" series) set in an Alternate Continuity of the series.
In this rendition, Buffy, here a 12-year old, moves from California to Cleveland with her mom, at first expecting to go through the rigors of having to adjust to a new setting. Things seem normal enough... until she gets to the final class of her first day at school dubbed "Library Science" which oddly doesn't have any other students. The teacher, Ms. Sparks, gets to the point and tells Buffy she's The Chosen One: the Slayer, and Sparks is meant to train her as her Watcher. Buffy doesn't believe it at first until a chance encounter with a vampire and managing to dispatch it convinces her otherwise so she takes up Spark's offer. Along the way she makes two friends, Sarafina, who she later finds is a novice witch and Alvaro, who is revealed to be a werewolf. Thus the four work together to combat the rising vampire threat.
The series was started in 2018 by one Carolyn Nowak and, so far, has two books in the series: "New School Nightmare" and "The Cursed Coven".
Has the following tropes
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General
- Alternate Universe: This series follows its own continuity than what was presented in the main one.
- Bloodless Carnage: We never see the vampires really biting anyone and when they're staked they turn into bats.
- Improbable Infant Survival: All the vampires are adults, we never see any kid vampires. Likely because this is aimed more for kids and would offset the lighter tone of the series seeing kids being drained and turned. Still not for lack of trying on the vampires' part.
- Lighter and Softer: Meant as a more kiddie take on the series.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They still retain the same bumpy Game Face from the TV series, but rather then turn to dust when staked, they turn into bats.
New School Nightmare
- Adults Are Useless: Nearly all the adults in the book are very unhelpful, and Buffy gets punished for a lot of trivial things. Even Ms. Sparks, Buffy's Watcher, has a very low grasp of social interactions and the trouble Buffy has to go through on the daily life side of things.
- Alpha Bitch: A girl named Melanie in this one who starts bullying Buffy just because she bumped into her after falling off her bike.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: At the start of the book, Buffy dreams of herself fighting vampires, not sure why she does until Sparks tells her that's one of the signs of a Slayer.
- Cute Witch: Sarafina; she mentions she learned it from her grandmother, who taught it to her sis and her. Though her grandmother just learned it from some books and mostly uses it for chores.
- Frame-Up: Melanie does this to Buffy by claiming she was using a cheat sheet during a test. Despite Buffy claiming otherwise, her teacher and her mother don't believe her, the latter getting suspicious of Buffy's recent behavior due to her trying to keep her secrecy as a Slayer.
- Friendly Enemy: Some of the vampires are surprisingly cordial with Buffy even through they're trying to kill her. At one point she needs to do a report for her class but has to do patrols. Sarafina and she end up finding two vampires who existed during the frontier days and managed to get them to tell Buffy of their experiences from that decade which Buffy uses for her report before they officially fight.
- Frozen Fashion Sense: Near all the vampires seen are still wearing clothes from their decades. Not really making it all that hard to spot them.
- Mythology Gag:
- As in the TV series, it starts with a move for the hero. Though rather then another section of California, it's to another state altogether.
- The vampires dressed in clothes from the era they were turned in was originally a thing they had tried in the TV series' first season but dropped over time.
- The first stake Buffy makes she dubs "Mr. Pointy".
- The three decide to call themselves Scoobies, which was the fan name for the heroes in the original series. In this case it was because Alvaro, being a werewolf, reminded Sarafina of the cartoon to his chagrin.
- Dracula is mentioned as real and having sold his story for fame (which he did in the original too).
- Spike and Drusilla are mentioned as two notorious vampires.
- Sparks utters "We're Doomed" when Buffy and Sarafina play around after a debriefing. Mirroring what Giles said at the end of the premiere two parter of the original series.
- The Watcher ties to fight the head vamp and loses as what happened in the first movie. Though in this one, Sparks just gets a broken arm for her trouble and it was really a feint so Sparks could get close enough to get the ring that was keeping him invulnerable off him, allowing Buffy to stake him.
- The climax takes place at the school, in this case during an eclipse. Luckily it's outside this time and doesn't involve having to burn it down.
- Likewise the Primum Dominum's plot is similar to Mayor Wilkins: Use a total eclipse for his plan which involve vampires. In this case though it's to throw a "party" of sorts where the vampires will feed on the children of the school.
- Must Be Invited: The usual rule with vampires, they have to be invited into a home to come in. One vampire gets around this during the Christmas season, managing to sneak into Buffy's home dressed as Santa as he got her letter that she had written to Santa, which counts as an invitation.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Since Buffy never tells her mother about being the slayer, she starts to get suspicious of her. This is why Melanie's frame up is so successful since Joyce can tell Buffy is lying about something.
- Due to all the stress Buffy endures, she finally snaps when Melanie purposely spills sloppy joes on her, to which Buffy responds by ripping Melanie's purse. Honestly she was lucky Buffy didn't just deck her for all the bullying she did to her.
- Since Buffy has to do so many nightly patrols, she doesn't get much rest and sleeps in class. This causes her grades to suffer, and at the end of the book, she has to go to summer school.
- Total Eclipse of the Plot: The protagonists find out that the Primun Dominum aka Buffy's principal plans to use an eclipse so he and his fellow vampires can feed on the kids during it, luring them to the football field via an ice cream social.
- Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: As at the start of the mainline series, Buffy has to struggle balancing her duties as a slayer and her social life. This series emphasis it a bit more as, while Buffy mention whatever power she has keeps her from feeling too tried, she still feels fatigue and ends up falling asleep in class from her late night patrols.
The Cursed Coven
