Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Misadventures of Max Crumbly; Locker Room Hero by Rachel Renée Russell

Image result for max crumblyRachel Renee Russell's ubiquitous Dork Diaries fly off the shelves at most libraries and bookshelves. Not to have the boys feeling left out, she has a new illustrated series aimed at middle grades. The Misadventures of Max Crumbly-Locker Room Hero introduces us to another lovable loser.

As is now standard practice in most of these books, our hero is a quirky kid (in this case an eighth grader) who has the usual issues (bullies, parents and girls) although not in that order. Max doesn't take himself too seriously at all and some of his flashback revelations are hilarious.


Max is new at his school and is not adjusting well to the social cues as well as to the overall structure of the institution. Worse, he soon draws the ire of the school bully, Doug Thurston. It is while fleeing his nemesis that poor Max winds up trapped with no seeming escape in sight. I can't wait to see how Max gets out of this jam.

This is another excellent addition to the burgeoning middle grade illustrated novel field. Read alikes to this would be Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Lenore Look's Alvin Ho, James Patterson's Middle School series and Stephan Pastis' Timmy Failure.


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