From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5--The third entry in the series explores friendship, forgiveness, understanding, and honesty. Hank promises to videotape an obscure science fiction movie for Frankie if the other boy will perform in his magic show. Unfortunately, the program guide on the television moves too quickly for Hank, and he accidentally tapes the wrong show, leaving his friend angry and disappointed. Hank must come up with a science experiment topic, and his mistake prompts him to try and invent a slow-scrolling TV channel guide for less-skilled readers. He dismantles his family's cable box and finds it difficult to reassemble. When he isn't paying attention, his sister's iguana moves into it and refuses to leave. In the end, Hank's increasingly elaborate schemes, his implied learning disability, and the iguana's eggs are all exposed. The wordy, first-person narration sometimes gets in the way of an already meandering story. Everything that happens is plausible enough, and Hank is a likable protagonist with good intentions. However, the authors frequently rely on his narrative role to take facile storytelling shortcuts and convey heavy-handed messages. "That's what you call true friendship," he unnecessarily explains after a simple gesture of kindness. Still, this child-friendly title is by no means the worst recent contribution to the celebrity children's book canon.--Catherine Threadgill, Charleston County Public Library, SC
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From the Inside Flap
It's science-project time in Ms. Adolf's class, and Hank is in the doldrums. He loves science--the experiments, the labs, the equipment--but he hates the report part--the hypothesis, the methodology, the conclusions. Hank turns to TV to take his mind off things, which becomes another annoyance when the program directory scrolls by too quickly for Hank to know what's on when. So he decides to take apart the cable box to try slowing down the crawl. And it'll make a great science project, too! But Hank wasn't counting on his sister Emily's iguana laying eighteen eggs in the disassembled cable box!
How's Hank going to get out of this one?
