Customer Reviews

Super Goofballs, Book 2: Goofballs in Paradise

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Another interesting book that will surely entertain young readers. Hannan's book is filled with imaginative ideas, humorous characters and exciting situations. It is sure to open curious minds to new ideas and have fun doing it.

#2 is really funny and exciting. The evil guy Mondo Grumpo reminds me of my gym teacher. I love it when he eats moldy lemons to stay grumpy and melts people with his finger of shame.Blunder mutt and Super Vacation Man are so funny. I really liked the battles. I like that Mighty TIghtyWhity is the main guy of the next book!

I'm a PTA mom who's run school book fairs for the past twelve years. The most popular books by far have always been those written in series. Goosbumps came first, then Captain Underpants, and Babysitter's Club for the girls. Now there's Super Goofballs. There's a certain "buzz" that goes around the classrooms when these books are discovered, and the momentum builds as each new book comes out.

For my crowd, it was the Nancy Drew mysteries, and before my time it was The Hardy Boys. Those books would be laughably genteel to kids now (which is why I've seen entire sets of them gather dust year after year in school libraries).

Our kids seem to have been born knowing how to use computers, and they've grown up with much more fast-paced T.V. shows than we ever could have imagined. So of course Super Goofballs "Amazing Techno Dude" has a remote control in his hand and a television around his head. Of course the books read like T.V. scripts. That's the point...Instead of passively watching, the kids are actively reading...And they read these books because they're fun.

I love the whole Super Goofball series! When my son began to read them he could not put them down. He can hardly wait to read the next one. Before reading this series he wasn't all that interested in reading. Now he actually suggests we go to the bookstore to see what other books are there to read. Hooray for this series!

I am a teacher in a Chicago public school classroom with students with ages that range from 6 to 10 years old. I used this book for my read-aloud (10 minutes everyday for 2 ½ weeks) and, in all honesty, I did not choose this book at random. The author is the uncle of one of my students and she presented me with the book wondering if I could read a few pages to the class. Well, after reading the first two chapters the students refused to let me stop and thus it became my new reading time book.

For this review I took a few polls. The first questions was: "Would you enthusiastically recommend this book to a friend?" 20 students said they would tell their friend they should definitely read it. 4 students might recommend it. 1 student would not recommend it. For the second question, you should know that we started with the 2nd book and then most of the students are now going back to read the first book (most are just a few chapters in). The second question was: "Which book do you think is better (so far)? 11 students liked the 2nd book better, 6 prefer the first (so far) and 8 either had no opinion or were not reading the 1st book.

Here are some quotes from students who really loved the book: "It's so good, you've got to read it!" "It was fun, funny and fabulous!" "Mondo Grumpo's finger of shame was really cool, especially when he sang his creepy song." "The characters are really fun, blunder mutt was my favorite." "The plot was very creative." When SVM gets fooled, it's extra funny." "Spittleman's speaking was `specially spitty!" "The illustrations were very funny and super creative."

The three kids who thought the book was, "just OK," all agreed that the "backwards and nonsense talk" didn't really make a lot of sense or was "weird and confusing." One said that the book felt a little long (the chapters are very short- some less than two pages- so there are forty-plus for the book, which might have made it feel long).

In general, I recommend this book for really attentive listeners who enjoy a lot of funny, but confusing, dialogue. As another reviewer mentioned, this is definitely for the Captain Underpants crowd.

On a personal note, I loved reading this book but it was definitely exhausting. It's like being in the middle of a cartoon, quick, spasmodic cuts from one scene to another. If you like reading in different voices, this book is a dream job (more than 10 different voices including: backwards talking granny, British pair of underpants, extra large boulder, two-headed-two voiced infant, valley-girl and many others).

To sum up, Room 200 gives this book 20 enthusiastic thumbs up!

Super Vacation Man (SVM) and Blunder Mutt have gone to track down Mondo Grumpo, a villain who wants to ruin everyone's fun. The problem is that SVM isn't really tracking the bad guy: he's gone on vacation at a super-fancy resort--or so he thinks.

Amazing Techno Dude (ATD) finds out that Mondo Grumpo is still on the loose, so he sends the other Super Goofballs to find SVM and Blunder Mutt. In the meantime, he strikes out to find the big grump.

Developed by Peter Hannan, creator of Nickelodeon's "CatDog" cartoon, this is the second book of the "Super Goofballs" series. Full of goofiness, this is targeted to 7-11 year olds.

Fans of "Captain Underpants" or "The Stupids" will probably like the "Super Goofballs." Other young readers might find this series average to annoying, depending on their personality, although this book is a little better than the first. This villain is more fun that the one in Book 1, and ATD seems to be a little less obnoxious this time around.

So far, however, this series is only so-so. It's not great, but it won't scar your child for life. If it comes down to reading this or watching TV, let your child read.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer

02/07/2007