81. Taro and the Terror of Eats Street by Sango Morimoto

Taro and the Terror of Eats Street by Sango Morimoto. (Canada) - (US)
The Adventures of Taro , 2
Pages: 96
Ages: 6-10
Finished: Mar. 28, 2011
First Published: 2008, Japan (Mar. 1 2011, US)
Publisher: Viz Media
Genre: children, manga, humour, fantasy
Rating: 2/5

First sentence:

It was a lazy Sunday morning and Taro was sleeping in. But not for long.

Acquired: Received a review copy from Simon & Schuster Canada.

Reason for Reading: Next in the series.

The first book in this series is absolutely adorable. I just had to continue on with this next book but unfortunately I was disappointed with it. It didn't have the same sense of fun or that gamers type of plot, in fact there really wasn't much of a plot at all and it was just plain silly. Now this may be a cultural thing as the theme of the book does centre around food. King Crossout has taken over Eats Street, where all the restaurants and eating places are found in Doodledum and the Wise Magician comes for Taro's help, giving him his magic pencil and turning him into Terrie. Once there, his sidekick Hippity is waiting for him and they go to Eats Street where all the chefs and owners are being mind controlled by King Crossout to make horrible food instead of delicious food. They don't realize this at first and aimlessly wander into eating establishments where they are forced to eat the food before they can leave. Taro does a few tricks with his pencil until King Crossout himself shows up and you can figure out the rest.

Really I didn't find it funny at all, all the sushi and Japanese food sounded gross to me whether it was the good stuff, carrot curry, or the bad stuff, garbage tea. Not up to par with the first book at all, which was hilarious. There are some puzzles to work your way through during the book, things that you use your mind for such as match-ups or you use your finger to work your way through a maze-like puzzle, so no need to mark the book with a pencil. Now I'm not six years old, the intended audience for this book and I think it will probably go over well with those who fell in love with Taro in book one as a host of familiar characters are back. This one also has just the tiniest bit of toilet humour which is always sure to get a laugh from that age group. There are two separate instances where "poop" is mentioned. I'm not ready to give up on the series yet. I'll try book three when it comes out and if it's like book one then I'll be more than happy to give the series a go and continue on but if it's like this one I'll have had my fill of Taro and Doodledum.