The Bad Guys (#1)

The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mr. Wolf is tired of being thought of as a Bad Guy just because he's a wolf, so he rounds up some other folks (Mr. Snake, Mr. Shark, and Mr. Piranha) who have faced the same prejudice, cajoling and convincing them to join his new Good Guys Club to seek out opportunities to do Good Deeds and change their reputations. They aren't at all certain this plan will work or whether they even want it to, but Wolf sweeps them along through sheer force of personality and enthusiasm. The team starts with rescuing a cat in a tree and moves on to liberating a dog pound.

My kids screeched with laughter as we read this fast-paced graphic novel, and I was quite glad I'd bought the full set. The series is a strong incentive for them to get ready for bed on time for a change so as to maximize bedtime story time.

For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, language (humorous banter) is secondary. Target audience is elementary school children. Piranha gets swallowed temporarily, and both Piranha and Snake get smacked against the side of a building a few times, but no realistic violence.

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The Proposal

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I bought and read this book months ago because I love Jasmine Guillory's books, but this one wasn't my favorite. It was mostly good, and there were parts I really liked, but what stands out most in my head is the scene where (slight spoiler ahead) Carlos tells Nik he loves her, she freaks out because she's in dire need of some therapy to work out her issues, and then--what drove me nuts--she uses the word "care" in the way that men use that word, and he responds to her use of the word in the way that women respond to it, which is to say, Not Well. I'm all in favor of gender-flipping things usually, but that part had me arguing with the book out loud, and months later that is what I remember most. I may need to re-read the book to remind myself of the rest of the story.

For readers' advisors: some steamy sex scenes and a fair amount of swearing.  One person (who deserves it!) gets punched.  Two secondary female characters meet & begin falling in love. Trigger warning: discussion of domestic abuse, specifically emotional abuse.

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Hey, Bruce! An Interactive Book

Hey, Bruce!: An Interactive Book by Ryan T. Higgins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ryan T. Higgins' books are an auto-buy for our family, and this one did not disappoint. My kids giggle and take turns poking, swirling, lifting, turning, and shaking the book, etc. as the mice try and "help" Bruce take his nap. We've read it many times since the Easter Bunny first delivered it in April.

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Princess Pulverizer: Grilled Cheese and Dragons

Grilled Cheese and Dragons by Nancy E. Krulik
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A spoiled brat princess hates her teacher and her Royal School of Ladylike Manners. She wants to go to Knight School instead because that looks way more fun. Her father tells her she can go to Knight School on the condition that she will first go out into the world and do eight good deeds, bringing back proof of each. This proves harder than she imagined, since honor, kindness, and sacrifice are not her strong suits, but eventually she gets an ogre to capture her so she can try and retrieve the jewels he stole and return them to their rightful owner. Along the way, she grudgingly teams up with a Knight School dropout and his dragon friend who wants to be a chef. One down, seven more good deeds to go!

I bought this book for my daughter, and it's pretty cute. I like how the self-centered princess (very) slowly begins to think of others, which bodes well for the later books in the series. I do wish Lady Frump and the ogre weren't basically caricatures of stereotypes, but perhaps they might be given depth and nuance later on in the series? I won't hold my breath on that, though.

For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, character secondary. Very fast-paced. Good for showing that not everyone fits neatly in predetermined gender (or species) roles, and even misfits have strengths to contribute.

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Mickey7

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I finished the book last night, I rounded 3.5 up to 4 stars, but now that the end-of-book-high has worn off, the problem I have with the characterization of Eight has become increasingly irritating to the point where I'm downgrading my rating. Now I'm at 2.5 rounding to 3. For the moment. Might go down to 2.

The premise of the book is centered around the concept that on a colonization mission to a new planet, one crew member is "Expendable," and after each death, he (Mickey) is bioprinted into a new body and comes out of the tank with the exact memories and personality of the original Mickey and all subsequent iterations as of the most recent upload data. So WHY does Eight come out of the tank acting like a jerk? For this premise to hold water, 7 and 8 should have been almost the same person, minus the most recent six weeks, and based on the personality of 7, nearly all the challenges of the story could have been either overcome or improved if 7 and 8 had simply talked to each other. Kept each other informed of what was going on, who said what to whom, etc. Heck, even keeping an open comm link might have helped! Then the story could have focused on the two of them working *together* to figure out what was up with the creepers rather than taking forever to figure out what the reader grasped immediately. I get that hunger makes people irrational and grumpy, but still. I find myself wanting to rewrite the story with the characterization problem solved to see how that could play out and what opportunities that might present with both Cat and Nasha.

For that matter, there were LOTS of characters who could have benefited from being 3-dimensional instead of archetypes. Berto, for one. Marshall, for another. Cat, Nasha, the prime creeper who never even gets a name.... Maybe later books in the series will flesh out the characters?

For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, setting (outer space on an ice planet about a thousand years in the future) doorway is secondary. Some occasional swearing. Some death, but even the descriptions of the various ways Mickey has died are not especially graphic. References to sex, but it's of the fade-to-black variety.

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The Princess in Black and the Giant Problem

The Princess in Black and the Giant Problem by Shannon Hale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's a quiet, snowy winter day and time for a superhero playdate, when suddenly the fun is interrupted by a giant who starts squashing everything and doesn't respond to the usual superhero tactics. What to do? Call in reinforcements, of course! Soon the Princess in Black, Princess in Blankets, and the Goat Avenger are joined by not just their superhero friends, but also 8 NEW superhero friends and animal sidekicks. Together they trap the giant in a giant-sized twine playpen, and the giant starts to...cry??

My kids and I love the theme of friendship and collaboration, and it's fun to see the silly combination of disguises the new friends come up with. You don't learn anything much about the new characters, but that may come in future installments in the series.

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Restart

Restart by Gordon Korman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this funny tale of a bully who falls off a roof while doing something illicit, then wakes with near total amnesia and is pretty horrified to find out what a jerk he's been. I enjoyed reading from the other characters' points of view as well as from Chase's, and I loved watching him choose to be a better person the second time around. It was a little unbelievable that losing his memory would have instantly transformed him into a kinder, better person, but I'm in no way an expert on head trauma, so I will totally give Gordon Korman the benefit of the doubt on this one and hope he did his research.

The other thing that kept this book from being a 5-star middle grade story for me was Chase's dad's abrupt switch from being a grown-up bully into a supportive father at the very end. That didn't ring true. I would like to think he, too, could change! But probably not without a lot of therapy. Dude was a jerk for a very long time, and he didn't have the benefit of amnesia. Otherwise, though, I loved this book!

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