January 5th 2021 by HarperAlley
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Arlo and his friends from Ella Mentry school are excited to be in a new graphic novel, and about going to visit NASA as well. When they are being shown around NASA headquarters, their tour guide, Mr. Corbett, lets them get a first hand look inside a rocket. When A.J. accidentally pushes the wrong button, the group is launched into space. Mr. Corbett faints, so it is up to the intrepid children to pilot the craft and save the day. When they are confronted by another spaceship, Arlo wants to blow it to smithereens before it can attack them, but luckily, cooler heads prevail. With help from a surprising source, the students are able to solve the problem of global warming! Will the group be able to make it back to Earth in time to get their buses home?
Strengths: The best part of this book for me was the information about environmental issues at the back of the book, and a plea for students to help educate their parents about things they can do to help the Earth. All elementary libraries will want to invest in this new series and to make sure that the chapter book series is up to date. Including more of Mr. Paillot's appealingly goofy illustrations makes perfect sense, and the combination of amusing pictures and puns and other goofiness will make this a sure winner with younger readers.
Weaknesses: Would Mr. Corbett faint? Well, he IS a tour guide for NASA and not a teacher. A teacher wouldn't faint!
What I really think: It makes me happy that Mr. Gutman has had so much success with the My Weird School series, and a graphic novel with these characters makes sense. There are already Fast Fact books as well as several I Can Read Books with these characters. What makes me sad is that this series seems too young for my students. I adored the Baseball Card Adventures as well as Getting Air, and selfishly would prefer Mr. Gutman to turn his impressive talents to older readers.
Weaknesses: Would Mr. Corbett faint? Well, he IS a tour guide for NASA and not a teacher. A teacher wouldn't faint!
What I really think: It makes me happy that Mr. Gutman has had so much success with the My Weird School series, and a graphic novel with these characters makes sense. There are already Fast Fact books as well as several I Can Read Books with these characters. What makes me sad is that this series seems too young for my students. I adored the Baseball Card Adventures as well as Getting Air, and selfishly would prefer Mr. Gutman to turn his impressive talents to older readers.
I'm thinking Mr. Corbett's name is a reference to "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" from decades ago.
ReplyDelete