Marty Pants: Keep Your Paws Off

Parisi, Mark. Marty Pants: Keep Your Paws Off (#2)
February 6th 2018 by HarperCollins
E ARC from Edelweiss Plus

When his cat Jerome brings him a fragment of his sister's diary, Marty decides that the cut off phrase "My brother is we..." must mean that he is a werewolf! He makes a list of 12 different qualities that might manifest themselves if he is, and throughout the book, more and more seem to pertain to him. His friends Parker and Roongrat try to help him, but Marty wants to make sure that they are safe as well. In the meantime, he has to deal with is sister, who is preparing for a quiz bowl type tournament, neighborhood bully Peach Fuzz, and a trip to the town dump to try to retrieve the diary. Luckily, Marty's love for candy has given him a cavity, which manages to cure his condition.
Strengths: Like the first Marty Pants, this has a lot of goofy, improbably events accompanied with comic illustrations. There's a little more plot the the majority of Wimpy Kid books, although there are lots of humorous, unrelated anecdotes as well. Marty is clearly not the brightest bulb, and young readers will enjoy knowing more than he knows.
Weaknesses: This leaned heavily toward the elementary side of the Pilkey line. The first book in the series does well with my 6th graders, however.
What I really think: Will probably purchase, although this was a bit too goofy for my taste.



Skye, Obert. Geeked Out
February 6th 2018 by Christy Ottaviano Books
E ARC from Edelweiss Plus

While I have this author's Wonkenstein series, he's just an author whose work I don't enjoy. This happens, and there's no good explanation. Geeked Out was super goofy and Dystopian in a way that my students never request. I'm going to pass, but if your library likes this author or this sort of notebook novel, definitely take a look.

From Goodreads:

Book 1 in a post-apocalyptic diary fiction odyssey!

Waddle Jr. High has become a dystopian outpost with divided cliques—Pepville, Jockstown, Staffland, and even Geekdom. Society may be in danger but middle school must go on. Enter geeky Tip and all his friends: easy-to-blush Owen, coding master Xennipher, and brilliant, dependable Mindy, who've all had enough of being bullied and decide to take a stand. Together, they form a secret vigilante group: the League of Average Mediocre Entities, better known as LAME. With everything that’s going on in the world, their school could use a few heroes. And what if those heroes were geeked-up superheroes? Get ready. Better yet, get LAME!

This irrepressible spoof series is full of the same clever humor and hilarious cartoon illustrations as the Creature From My Closet series, but for a slightly older middle-grade audience.