Monster Mayhem by Christopher Eliopoulos, 213 pages. GRAPHIC NOVEL. Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin), 2018. $15.
Language: G (0 swears); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.
BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Zoe is a wiz with machines and making robots, but she isn’t very good at making friends. She uses robots as friends and spends her extra time alone at the movie theater watching Japanese monster films. Then one day she finds and puts on a ring that unexpectedly brings those Japanese film monsters into her city. Luckily she is equipped with the technological skills to fight them, but she will need a team and for that she must reach out and make friends.
I thought the plot structure was a little lopsided with a great deal of time spent on the main character’s robots and very little time spent on the friends that she makes. There is a long exposition and not enough development later on. There are some good things going for this book - it features a family of color and Zoe is young in appearance, making this a good fit for especially young readers interested in graphic novels.
Jen Wecker, HS English Teacher
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