[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Random House Books for Young Readers in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
When Max Meow accidentally leads an evil robot to his scientist friend Mindy Microbe’s secret lab, it leads to trouble. The robot tries to steal a weird space meatball Mindy has been studying, and in the process, Mindy’s lab is destroyed.
And then Max accidentally eats some of the weird meatball. And he becomes a super hero.
Review
This is Max’s origin story. He’s a regular cat who ingests a bit of space meatball and gains super powers. He can fly, he has super strength, and he can zap things with his tail. This is all very timely because Agent M and his evil robot minion are trying to steal the meatball for their secret boss.
The story is pretty standard for the genre. While Max gets powers, he also gets cocky which causes trouble with his friend Mindy. He learns he’d be better off if he listened to her.
Max needs to repair his friendship, learn to be a better hero, and face Agent M. Standard superhero/villain battles ensue. The setting of the putt-putt course made for some fun moments. Fans of these sorts of graphic novels will enjoy this one. There are instructions for drawing Max in the book, so kids who love creating their own art will enjoy that feature. There are a couple nice reveals at the end that set up book 2, Donuts and Danger, which will release next year. This doesn’t have the heart or the humor of something like the Hilo series (book 1, The Boy Who Crashed to Earth – ♥♥♥♥♥), but I think kids will get a kick out of this one.
Rating: ♥♥♥*
*♥♥♥ = Good/fine/solid