MMGM Giveaway- Convergence

 It's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday at Ramblings of a Wannabe Scribe and What Are You Reading? day at Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers. It's also Nonfiction Monday.



You can all thank my student, Jaden, who is a HUGE Stan Lee fan and couldn't wait to get his hands on this book! I told him that I would host a GIVEAWAY just so we could get a copy for him to read! So, to enter to win a copy of this book from Disney, leave a comment below.

Lee, Stan. Moore, Stuart and Tong, Andie. Convergence (Zodiac Legacy #1)
January 27th 2015 by Disney Press
E ARC from Netgalley.com; samples and prizes provided by Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Steven Lee is on a class trip to China, feeling awkward yet again. His parents are always working, and he never feels quite American enough... and now doesn't feel Chinese enough. This changes when he seems the tour guide disappear and hears a scream. He follows it and gets sucked into a world of zodiac powers-- he gets hit by a beam and acquires the powers of the tiger. The evil Maxwell wants all of the power for himself and is angry at the tour guide, Jasmine, for messing up his plan. Jasmine hates Maxwell because he is a "war contractor" and ended up annihilating the city of Lysteria because of a mistake he made-- and annihilated her parents as well. The beams have gone out randomly, and Jasmine and Carlos, a tech geek, think that other kids absorbed them, so the group takes off to find the other zodiac members before Maxwell does. They find Roxanne in France, Liam in Northern Ireland, Duane, and Kim. None of them have any family ties that will hold them down, so before long, the group is at their facility in Greenland. It is, of course, attacked by Maxwell and the zodiac members who are evil, including Dog, Monkey and Horse. Maxwell's base is in Australia, but he is bound and determined to get everyone on his side because he thinks the world is beyond saving. Stan enjoys being in the group, but occasionally feels he doesn't belong, but he's not willing to go over to Maxwell's side. After lots of fighting, Maxwell is neutralized for the time being, but both groups will certainly be back.
Strengths: Stan Lee is 91 years old, and apparently made of awesome. He can do anything he wants, and people will want to check it out. This book incorporated a fair number of comic book style illustrations, had TONS of action, and was nicely multicultural to boot. Just buy it.
Weaknesses: 480 pages. Oof. Plus, it took about 200 pages until we had all of the main characters. It wasn't hard to keep them straight, but there were a lot of characters. I thought the length would be attributed to a Hugo Cabret number of illustrations, but it was just a really long book!

KEY LINKS

Learn More at DisneyZodiac.com

Watch the Book Trailer

Follow DisneyHyperion on Twitter

#ZodiacLegacy

Here's the trailer: