Crash Landing
November 28, 2016
Kelvin Klosmo, the son of two brilliant scientists and the unwitting hero of this fun but disjointed extraterrestrial adventure, has a huge reputation to live up to. As the principal at his new school, Sciriustrati Fibronoculareus Junior High (aka Sci-Fi Junior High), reminds him on his first day: “I can’t even imagine what a genius you must be! We’re expecting incredible things from you, young man.” Kelvin thinks that his biggest problem will be maintaining the guise of being the “smartest kid in the galaxy,” until his community is threatened by an evil scientist. Kelvin scrambles to prove himself and save his friends and family, but weak characterizations and a jumbled narrative can make the story hard to follow as it bounces across the galaxy. Punchy black-and-white spot illustrations and comics sequences appear throughout, playing up the slapstick humor of this collaboration from the duo behind the Vordak the Incomprehensible series. For better or worse, sentences like “What? Zot? Play glormball against Dorn?” will indeed leave readers feeling like they’ve entered an unfamiliar alien landscape. Ages 8–12. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House.
November 15, 2017
Kelvin Klosmo has to learn to dance, get the girl, and make a new name for himself (Larva Boy, Drifting Dufus, and Under-a-Minute Moron have got to go). But he still needs to find time to save the universe (again).Life on a space station 329 quadrillion miles from Earth sounds exciting, but for Kelvin, it is mostly terrifying, humiliating, and downright irritating. Because even if one of your friends lives in a fishbowl, another has three pairs of eyes, and yet another has a giant brain that shrinks when he is overwhelmed, it turns out junior high school is pretty much the same wherever you go. Shrink rays, giant robots, and disco-dancing parents are just part of a normal day on the space station. But when Kelvin's father reveals that he is storing a superweapon in his lab, only Kelvin and his friends see the potential for disaster. Corny jokes, wacky high jinks, a supervillain bunny, and engaging illustrations keep the pages turning, while Kelvin's upbeat attitude in the face of mortification, mayhem, and mystery meat are endearing. Diversity is limited to the extraterrestrial variety. Martin and Seegert's frequent spot illustrations and comic-strip panels serve up such audience favorites as a farting, tentacled alien, another whose grin is held in place by orthodontic headgear, and a principal who is a giant slug.Wacky out-of-this-world fun. (Graphic/science fiction hybrid. 8-12)
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July 1, 2018
Kelvin Klosmo, the non-genius son of genius scientists, returns for his second adventure on a space station. Kelvin and his extraterrestrial friends are again charged with saving the universe without getting any credit for it. Flat characters are offset by nonstop action and humor; cartoon illustrations appear on nearly every page, and a variety of fonts and thumbnail drawings designate who is speaking.
(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)