REVIEW: The Earth Kingdom Chronicles #2: The Tale of Azula (book) by Michael Teitelbaum, based on original screenplays written for Avatar: The Last Airbender, illustrated by Patrick Spaziante

The Tale of Azula is a children's novelization of the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, from Azula's perspective.

Review:

It’s been about 5 years since I last saw Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender, so I had to check Wikipedia for reminders and, holy crap, this 89-page book covers the entire season. It’s ridiculous.

The way events were crammed in, it felt 1) like barely any time had passed, even though it was obvious that couldn’t be the case, and 2) like Azula had the attention span of a goldfish. At the start of the book, she was after Zuko and Iroh. Then she spotted Aang and decided it’d be great if she could catch him and Zuko and Iroh. Her father would be so proud, and he’d totally make her his heir! By page 70, she decided that it’d be even better if she acquired the whole Earth Kingdom.

The time I spent reading this probably would have been better spent rewatching some of the show. This added absolutely nothing. I picked it up (steeply discounted, thank goodness) thinking that it would feature a whole new story starring Azula. I didn’t expect too much, just something that, in the original series, would have qualified as filler, but I didn’t even get that. Instead it was a tedious, boring, and at times confusing rehash of events straight out of the series. Even the change in POV added nothing new. Azula was depicted as a one-note character with zero depth. It was extremely disappointing.

Literally everything about this was terrible. The book used an Avatar: The Last Airbender font throughout, which made for difficult/annoying reading. Also, the author could not keep his tenses straight. Often the tense would change from one paragraph to the next, present to past and then back to present, for no reason that I could see. Here are a couple examples of it happening in the same paragraph, or even same sentence:

“Ahhh! A wall of rock rose up through the track, blocking my pinwheel blast. In a matter of seconds I’ll crash right into the rock! I jumped out of the mail cart, which smashed into bits against the rock wall.” (34)

“It was a little infuriating that Kyoshi warriors would garner such a welcome, but I will not complain just yet.” (67)

I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, and I’m really glad I didn’t get any of the other books in this series.

REVIEW: Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (book) by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is middle grade humorous fiction.

Review:

Rafe isn't thrilled with the way his first year of middle school started. At the suggestion of his best friend, Leo the Silent (the guy who rarely speaks and usually communicates via drawings that are incorporated into the book), Rafe comes up with Operation R.A.F.E. (Rules Aren't For Everyone). The whole thing is based on the school rules. Each rule that Rafe breaks earns him points depending on the level of danger, the amount of planning that went into it, who saw him, and what happened as a result of his actions. He does have one limitation, however, his “No-Hurt Rule” - Rafe's actions can't hurt anyone but himself. Unfortunately, things don't always go the way Rafe plans.

This book was a freebie I got at a library conference. I admit, I was expecting it to be awful, at least as bad as Michael Ledwidge and James Patterson's The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, and the first few pages fit my expectations. Like Daniel, Rafe's “voice” sounded several decades older than it should have. He referred to his mother as “Jules” and described one of the students at his school as “a real nice kid” (24). The chapters bounced from one thing to the next (Miller the Killer, Leo's introduction, then school again), as though Rafe had had a little too much sugar prior to telling his story. I also wasn't thrilled that Jeanne, the first female character Rafe wasn't related to, was instantly the object of Rafe's fantasies.

The whole premise had issues, too. Operation R.A.F.E. was alarmingly self-destructive, and Rafe's “best friend” didn't exactly help. Rafe seemed completely blind to the fact that Leo had suggested a game that required that he take all the risks while Leo got to sit back and enjoy the entertainment.

I'm going to guess that the first few pages of the book were the ones Patterson paid the most attention to, because the believability of Rafe's POV improved dramatically as the story went on. I found myself caring about Rafe and his family, which meant I spent a lot of the book wishing I could tell Rafe to stop doing stupid things just because Leo said he should. I seriously hated Leo.

Rafe was a fascinatingly unreliable narrator, and I enjoyed trying to read between the lines. I could usually guess what the adults around him were thinking, but there were occasional mysterious conversations that caught my interest and had me wondering what else was going on. I had some guesses, but they turned out to be nowhere near the truth.

I really felt for Rafe and wanted things to somehow turn out okay for him. At the same time, I liked that certain things weren't handed to him on a platter. Jeanne, for example, was thankfully not Rafe's designated future girlfriend (at least in this book – I have no idea what happens in the later ones). She had thoughts and ideas that didn't necessarily have a thing to do with what Rafe wanted from her.

This could have been a really good book, if it hadn't been for the ending. It felt like everything fell into place too neatly and easily, and the final revelation seemed like overkill. That said, this was still way better than I expected. The story and characters had me hooked, and I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next, even as I worried about Rafe and his mom. I also thought that the illustrations were a nice, fun touch.

REVIEW: Dragonbreath (book) by Ursula Vernon

Dragonbreath is children's fantasy. It's the first in a series.

Review:

Dragonbreath stars Danny Dragonbreath, a young dragon who hasn't yet learned how to breathe fire, and his best friend Wendell, a green iguana. Whereas Wendell studies, does his homework, and would probably never get into trouble on his own, Danny has waited until the morning bus ride to write his science paper. He was going to ask Wendell for help, but his topic was the ocean and Wendell's was bats. Danny's science teacher isn't particularly interested in Danny's paper on “the rare and elusive snorklebat” and tells him to turn in a better paper tomorrow. Library research isn't really Danny's style, so, at his mother's suggestion, Danny visits his cousin Edward, a sea serpent. Danny drags Wendell along with him.

When my local entertainment store announced that it was closing for good, I spotted this on the shelves during the ensuing “going out of business” sales and decided to buy it. I had my oldest niece in mind, but I'm pretty sure it's above her current reading level. I still plan to leave it with my sister next time I visit – the kids might at least enjoy the pictures. Like Vernon's Harriet the Invincible, the book is a mixture of plain text and graphic novel-style pages with illustrations and speech bubbles.

Dragonbreath was a little more focused than Harriet the Invincible, although Danny didn't work quite as well for me as Harriet did. Harriet was fearless, smart, and brave. Danny was fearless but didn't always think before he threw himself into potentially dangerous situations. Wendell had to be the voice of caution, and even then he rarely managed to rein Danny in.

Wendell was basically me. I couldn't help but laugh at this bit: “It was one thing to bring Cousin Edward along – Edward was mythological, after all, and used to this sort of thing – but Wendell was an iguana. Epic tales of heroism and disaster were notably lacking in iguanas. His best friend just wasn't cut out for high drama.” (121) If Wendell had been the star of the story, the whole thing would have taken place in a library.

The story itself was a bit of adventure plus some fairly straightforward edutainment. Danny and Wendell learned about the bends, sea cucumber defense mechanisms (gross), jellyfish, anglerfish (one of which was correctly referred to as female), and more. Mixed in with the real-world stuff was the lost city of Atlantis and a Kraken.

In addition to their underwater adventure, Danny and Wendell also dealt with a bully. Like the rest of the book, these parts were pretty light-hearted. The fierce potato salad was great, and I really liked that it was technically Wendell who got rid of the bully the second time around.

All in all, this was pretty good. I may try the next book in the series.

REVIEW: The Stinky Cheese Caper and Other Cases from the ZPD Files (book) by Greg Trine, illustrated by Cory Loftis

Yes, I have read another Zootopia book intended for children in an effort to get a new Zootopia fix. One of these days I'll break down and dive into the fanfic.

After reading the junior novelization, I wasn't expecting much from this. The cover made it sound like it would be composed of four standalone stories (“Four stories in one!”). Since it was only 75 pages long, I figured those stories would have to be extremely simple.

In “The Stinky Cheese Caper,” Judy and Nick investigate the theft of a very expensive and very stinky cheese. In “There's Dirt in Your Eye,” Judy and Nick investigate a report of someone dumping dirt of the Old Outback Bridge. The dirt landed on a boatload of tourists and could have hurt someone. In “No Noise Is Good Noise,” Judy and Nick investigate reports of incredibly loud and horrible music coming from a cafe. All the local shopkeepers feel it's hurting their businesses. Finally, in “The Dig's Up,” Judy and Nick investigate a prison break.

This book takes place several months after the end of the movie. Judy and Nick are partners, assigned mostly to traffic duty or cases that none of the other cops want to work on. Astute readers will guess that the four stories are probably related after finishing the first one. Readers who aren't able to figure out that the stories are connected by the beginning of the second one will probably not enjoy this book because, individually and taken at face value, most of these mysteries are pretty dull.

Like I said, I started this book on the assumption that the stories weren't connected. All the unused details in the first story were my first clue that there was something bigger going on. Kangaroos and wallabies were protesting the construction of a new Bridge to Everywhere because it was a “Bridge to Everywhere But Outback Island.” The identity of the cheese thief was another link to Outback Island, but his theft supposedly had nothing to do with the bridge. Also, he supposedly tossed the stinky cheese into the jail on a whim. Surely there was more to it than that? And was the amusement park's new Wind Tunnel ride important? (As far as the last question went, the answer was “no.”)

The second mystery's resolution was ridiculously mundane, to the point where, if it hadn't been obvious that there was something else going on, it wouldn't have been worth including. By the third story, I was wondering where Judy and Nick's brains had gone. Nick, at least, had moments when he wondered about the sudden spate of Outback Island-related cases. Judy, on the other hand, seemed determined to take all the cases at face value, and even missed an enormous clue in a TV news report. I'm sure this was done to keep the story simpler for young readers, but Movie Judy and Nick would have noticed and started looking into the connections sooner than Book Judy and Nick.

As far as the larger story went, I felt a bit torn. The book's overall message was that, although the Outback Island residents had an excellent point, they'd gone about it the wrong way. The problem: the “better” solution was very simplistic (yes, I know this is a kid's book, but still) and might not have even been possible without the connections that the characters made due to everybody doing things the “wrong” way first.

All in all, I enjoyed this more than the junior novelization. The individual mysteries weren't great, and Nick and Judy weren't as sharp as they should have been, but the larger story kept my attention. I enjoyed seeing how everything fit together. I also liked getting to learn about a new area of Zootopia (the revelation that platypuses exist in the Zootopia universe leaves me with all kinds of questions), and seeing Judy and Nick together as partners was fun. I missed the personal and relationship details that the movie was riddled with – this book was entirely focused on the plot, with only a brief mention of Nick visiting an unnamed friend in the jail –  but there were still several nice moments. I liked the bit where Judy corrected the warden, who thought that beaver and platypus tails looked the same, and Nick's excitement about getting to use their siren was cute. Judy seemed to be a little bit stun gun happy, though, pulling it out at least twice in the course of the book.

Extras:

Several black-and-white illustrations in the same style as the cover. Very different from the movie's style, but I liked them all the same. And, ooh, Cory Loftis' Tumblr has some fun stuff. Here's my favorite. "Really Jordan basketball grip her face." (Poor Assistant Mayor Bellwether.) "Ghost of Secretariat appears suddenly."