Synopsis
The youngest and spunkiest girl in outer space is back and ready to play!
Supermuscleman and Doc Krok are at it again, and it's not just the galaxy they're out to ruin - it's Sardine and Little Louie, too! Get ready for the ultimate match-up as wits battle brawn in the best bout of this series. Yes, that s right - it's the Space Boxing Championship! The fearless cousins must go head to head with Supermuscleman, Chief Executive Dictator of the Universe, shrunken to enter the kids matches, but just as muscley. And that's only the first of the ten stories contained in this book.
In a starred review of the first Sardine volume, Kirkus Reviews proclaimed, "With non-stop action [and] humor geared to multiple levels of cultural awareness . . . readers will find that, as Supermuscleman sneers shortly before gorily blasting his own foot, 'Resistance is futile.'"
Children's Literature
On the inside cover it states, "No Grown-ups Allowed!" (Unless they are pirates or space adventurers.) This is very good advice. This is a book of great fun where the characters are colorful, the text is easy to read and follow, and the illustrations are terrific. Some of the adventures the reader will enjoy include: a Space Boxing Champion Bout, a great event of a game called Socabone, an island of desserts, Mt. Saint Heines erupting ketchup, and a message found in a bottle. Of course the villains Supermuscleman and Dr. Krok add to the entertainment. My favorite was about the Universal Attraction, a musical event. There was the bass monkey, sealaphone, and chicken drums to name a few. The band is taken, the musical instruments are left behind, and all the planets are hypnotized. How do the heroes save the day or should I say space? The illustrations are the kind that children will revisit over and over again because there is so much on each page that the reader cannot possibly take it all in at once. This book is written in graphic format, a favorite of mine. This format makes it perfect for students who are reluctant readers and never seem to finish a book on their own. Young adults who want to read anything they can get their hands on will also enjoy the graphics and fast paced text. The full-color graphics make an enormous impact on the story. This book would be great as a present!