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Rating: 3.75/5 Stars
Genre: Contemporary/Humor/Muppets (because they can be there own genre, right?)
Release Date: 9/5/2011
Add to Goodreads About the Book: Danvers Blickensderfer is the biggest Gonzo fan you'll ever meet. His school reports are all about Gonzo, he has a Gonzo shirt for every day of the week, and he even aspires to be an amazing daredevil just like The Great Gonzo. When Danvers's audition for the local talent show fails and he looses out to the middle school boy band, Emo-Shun, Danvers thinks he's hit rock bottom. That night, Danvers goes to bed wishing he could be like Gonzo. The next morning Danvers discovers he's furry-and now turned into a Muppet and there's an internship open at The Muppet Theater. With his new Mupppet form, will he have a chance to meet and train with The Great Gonzo? And will The Muppets give Danvers a chance to perform at the talent show after all?
GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I LOVE The Muppets. I still think of them as real and not puppets. I could watch The Muppets all the time and never get tired of them. So when I heard about this book, I knew I had to read it. And happily, it lives up to the humor I would expect from a book about The Muppets.
The style is "Wimpy Kid-esque" with drawings and text combined to tell the story. Part of the book are drawings and entries from Danvers and some of the drawings are from the author. Readers who like books with a mix of illustrations and text will most likely be interested and it might be a nice selling point for kids who might not be familiar with The Muppets. I do wonder how well known The Muppets are with tweens, but with the upcoming movie, maybe readers will know who Gonzo is.
I did like that the author didn't just include just the most popular Muppets. Sure, Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gonzo and Fozzy all make appearances, but so does The Electric Mayham Band, Sam the Eagle, Dr. Bunson Honeydew and Beaker, and Statler and Waldorf, (in a very hilarious way-they begin to heckle Danvers randomly throughout his day). As a Muppet fan, I appreciated that the cast was well rounded and there were lots of fun cameos from some of my favorites.
The humor is what you would expect from The Muppets and there are lots of jokes and puns and crazy happenings. Once Danvers becomes a Muppet himself, we are shown a Muppet filled world, much like you would see in The Muppet Movies. There are the regular Muppet characters, but there are also Muppets that fill Danvers world. The other Muppet intern is a pig, Danvers visits a school where there are humann students and frogs-and no one bats an eye.
2 Comments on Tween Tuesday: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet by Kirk Scroggs, last added: 10/18/2011
Remember when I told you about my adult lit class? Well, there was enough interest so I'm going to begin reviewing the titles I read for my class here in a (hopefully) weekly feature!
Rating: 3.75/5 Stars
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release Date: 6/25/2007
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About the Book: Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie is 34th in line for the throne and flat broke. Her brother the duke is economizing and Georgie has been cut off. When the queen tries to set her up with the horrible Prince Siegfried (aka fishface) Georgie runs from her Scotland castle to her family's London house under the pretense of helping a friend with a wedding. Georgie is hoping to make a new life for herself. She moonlights as a maid (the horror!) and befriends the handsome but also penniless Darcy O'Mara. When a blackmailing Frenchman winds up dead in her bathtub, Georgie has a new job-discover the killer.
GreenBeanTeenQueen Says: I decided to read this book because my mom is a fan of Rhys Bowen and I'm a fan of lighter mysteries, so I thought this would be a good read.
In many ways, I believe Her Royal Spyness would be considered a cozy mystery. It is fairly light on the mystery side, and while there is a mystery plot, it does take awhile before the mystery really takes off. The body doesn’t appear until just over 100 pages into the book and even then the story goes between Georgie’s many responsibilities-spying on the Prince for the Queen, avoiding Prince fishface, visiting her grandfather, trying not to fall for Darcy O’Mara, as well as trying to catch the killer.
There was a lot happening in this book away from the mystery that I think makes it seem lighter than typical mystery fare. Georgie is very much an amateur detective and at sometimes a little bumbling in her detective skills. Her brother is accused of the murder and she's working hard to clear the family name. The mystery is somewhat easy to solve, so readers looking for a real puzzle won’t find one here. Clues are dropped early on and they are fairly easy to solve. But the story is still lots of fun and has lots of humor which I think will attract readers looking for a quick easy read with a bit of mystery thrown in.
I was a bit annoyed with how long it took for the story to get going. I think that’s partly due to the fact that the jacket flap covers a lot of what happens in the first half of the book, so I was expecting the body to show up and Georgie to start in on her case early on. It takes a bit to get there, but leading up to it is fun. Georgie’s mother is an eccentric former actress who flits from lover to lover and the relationship between th
I love the muppets! So glad that there is a new movie and a book that will make a good pairing. Thanks for bringing this one to my attention!
Oh the muppets! I think I'd pick it up based only on the title :)