June 1, 2024 by Scholastic Paperbacks
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
It is of note that even the publisher's official listings do not give a synopsis of this story. Since my reviewing of the series has been spotty (1-7 and 10), I found myself at a little bit of a loss as to who some characters were and what was going on. Perhaps I should watch the Major Motion Picture in order to catch up.
Mr. Wolf and Mr. Snake are bound and determined to break records and become hugely famous by robbing twenty one banks in twenty one days, but when they enter the bank, they are confronted with a giant needletoothed serpent who speaks in all capital demonic font and threatens to make them suffer. He and his multiple minions, however, are thwarted when new and improved versions of the original Bad Guys show up. They have all communed with The One, who has bestowed awesome powers on them, so they are now champions of time and space and have no limits. Legs now has a bit of Fidel Castro look and is known as The General. Mr. Snake's father Papa Alpha is a head in a jar. Joy is pure positive energy... but with laser eyes. The Hands of Magnificence are even larger sentient... butt cheeks? And Delores Gristlewurst, aka The Tiffinator, has Buck in a necklace as well as a fake eye patch. What was a short time for Mr. Wolf was eons for this group, who have arrived back just in the nick of time to help. There is an epic battle, and Papa Alpha turns their nemesis into a spoon. The Tiffinator uses her powers to reduce some of the other combatants to their essential selves, who are sweet and offer the Bad Guys cookies. There are a lot of battles, and each one is perhaps the last one... until it's not. In the tradition of Batman, there are zaps and arrs and urgghhhs galore, and eventually someone gets hurt. Mr. Wolf is on the ropes, refusing to join forces with evil, when the appearance of Milt saves him. Milt woobs up a storm until he calls (or becomes?) The One. Who now has a mullet. The One stops the fighting and tells Ellen that she is her hero. The minions all turn back into their true selves, which all seem to be younger, cuter versions of the Bad Guys. Everyone is ready to go home, but a last minute attack from the serpent leaves things in question, and makes book twenty a necessity.
The appeal of this series is, of course, the nonstop goofiness, and this book has that in spades. Readers who have devoured each book in the series multiple times (and I know many of these personally) will be able to identify the characters much better than I can, and will fully understand their plot and developmental arcs in a way that I don't. It was good to see that no matter what their incarnation, Wolf and Snake (Cedric) remain friends.
Like Barnett and Harris' The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza or Angleberger's Two-Headed Chicken, the Bad Guys series was not written for old ladies like myself who were raised on Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. It was written for elementary school students who watch Tik Tok videos of exploding Mentos in cans of pop and learned to read from Krosoczka Lunch Lady books or Geronimo Stilton titles. As such, it is the perfect giggle producing book to read under the covers (by the light of a cell phone?) or to snigger over with friends. It's even better because the grown ups don't understand it!
August 6, 2024 by Scholastic Paperbacks
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
After Princess Beautiful's adventures in Cat of Death, she was left in a perilous position. Worldwide news media is in a frenzy, predicting that she wants to end the world. She does, after all, have a head full of nuclear codes. Her boyfriend, Catrick Cash, maintains that she is innocent, but Marshall Cheeseman is ready to hunt her down. Princess Beautiful has been kidnapped, and when she comes out of the tranquilizer gun medicine, she finds that her captor is Marv, who knows what it is like to be a scapegoat. Yes, he is actually a goat, but he really wants to help the cat on the run out. He has taken her to Bratislava, and sets her off on a self-guided training course for which she is using videos on the Pizza Guy's phone. This, unbeknownst to her, alerts Marshall Cheeseman to her whereabouts. Marv had seen the scorpion on Princess Beautiful's computer screen when she was ostensibly downloading nuclear codes, and lured her into his van by painting a scorpion on it, but has pinpointed the real source to a scorpion shaped set of islands. He borrows a boat from a friend, and soon the two are off to uncover whatever secretes can be found there. Princess Beautiful shares with Marv her tragic origin story; she was going to a good college, planning to have a useful and successful career, when her friend scared her with a cucumber, and the video went viral. She made several other videos so she didn't look foolish, and a social media star was born. Once on the island, they see some actual scorpions, which don't bother our intrepid heroine, but also a giant cucumber patch, which throws her into a temporary tizzy. This is, of course, what Marshall Cheeseman captures on video when he arrives, and the media again posit this as proof she is a danger to the world. Catrick shows up with his father. Marv wants to speak to her right away, and she has to choose whom to trust. She chooses to talk to Marv, and he helps her to understand what is going on with the Cashes. It's truly frightening, and certainly sets the stage for book number three.
I'm not quite sure how much younger readers will understand about the media frenzy and Tiffany Fluffit's scare tactics, but this is goofy enough that it doesn't matter. This concentrates more on Princess Beautiful's survival rather than her social media presence, but also addresses some of the pitfalls that exist when one's life is lived in public. Many of my students list as their career aspirations "YouTuber", so Princess Beautiful's notoriety will be taken seriously by the tween set.
There are lots of inside jokes that will make this appeal to older readers as well; some of the training scenes are reminscent of The Karate Kid, and Marv's explanation of what a scapegoat is was excellent. There are other Easter eggs, I'm sure; I didn't know that cats being scared by cucumbers was a thing on the internet, but it apparently is. My students will know this, and understand the title right away.
Blabey's illustrations are always exuberant, and filled with silly characters and improbably situations. I imagine that breakfast in his house is amusing. "What's a sillier sounding place for Princess Beautiful to be... Bratislava or... Schenectady? You're right. If she's in Eastern Europe, there can be a joke about too much sedative." I do enjoy the tiny bits of red accents in the drawings, which are expecially delightful when they show up in hair bows or cell phone alerts.
Blabey's Bad Guys series is something of a comfort read for middle schoolers, and I'm sure that they will enjoy the zany, pandemonium filled Nutty Bar that is Cat on the Run. Hand this to fans of Angleberger's The Two-Headed Chicken, Rex's Fangbone, Brockington's Castronauts, or the Geronimo Stilton books.
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