February 1, 2021
Gr 1-4-From eating pellets to using the exercise wheel, Turbo the hamster takes his duties as the official classroom pet of Classroom C seriously. But at night, when strange sounds disturb his rest, he dons a pair of green goggles and a cape and becomes Super Turbo to protect the school from wrongdoing. In Saves the Day!, the intrepid hamster creates the Superpet Superhero League (comprised of a gecko, a guinea pig, a bird, a turtle, a goldfish, and a bunny), who stop Whiskerface (a mouse who insists that he's "a big, mean, nasty rat!") from conquering the school and then the world. In Flying Ninja Squirrels, the gang takes a side adventure to learn how to make model volcanoes before helping the ninja squirrels recover their golden acorn from Whiskerface. Costanza's fully colored, action-packed cartoons maximize characters' expressive reactions, with hilarious results. Though fairly low-stakes, the tale is playful and humorous, with Turbo breaking the fourth wall by interacting with an unseen narrator (when the two quibble over whether Turbo's leap through the air is "jumping" or "flying," Turbo stresses, "That was definitely flying!"). VERDICT A fun, straightforward graphic novel series for young readers interested in comical superhero type characters without too much drama.-Amanda Melilli, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas
Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
December 1, 2020
A lovable hamster moonlights as a superhero. Once the students depart Sunnyview Elementary, Turbo, the official pet hamster of Classroom C, leaves his palace (don't call it a cage!) to become his evil-thwarting, sunshine-yellow-cape-clad alter ego, Super Turbo. Wandering the corridors on a snow day, Super Turbo discovers that he's not the only powerful pet at Sunnyview; he soon befriends Great Gecko, Wonder Pig (a guinea pig), the Green Winger (a parakeet), Professor Turtle, Boss Bunny, and Fantastic Fish. The menagerie forms the Superpet Superhero League just in time to face off against Whiskerface, a megalomaniacal mouse (with delusions of rat grandeur) planning to take over the school with his rodent army, the Rat Pack. Can Super Turbo and his friends save their beloved school? Originally published in 2016 as a black-and-white graphic-novel hybrid, this new edition features an entire revamp from cover to cover, transitioning its prose sequences to comic panels, changing its illustrator, and adding a zippy full-color palette to its art. Powers (previously writing under the pseudonym Lee Kirby) has reworked his storytelling, condensing it to fit Costanza's tidy, simply rendered panels but otherwise leaving the general plot points intact. Bank on this wisely wrought update to have a wide appeal to fans of Ben Clanton's Narwhal and Jelly or Andy Runton's Owly series. Sequel Super Turbo vs. the Flying Ninja Squirrels publishes simultaneously. Class-pet capers with a sassy new style. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)
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