DC Super-Pets!: Midway Monkey Madness by Sarah Hines Stephens

Midway Monkey Madness by Sarah Hines Stephens. Illustrated by Art Baltazar. (Canada) - (US)
DC Super-Pets! series

Pages: 52
Ages: 6+
Finished: Apr. 27, 2011
First Published: Jan. 2, 2011
Publisher: Picture Window Books
Genre: Easy Reader, Superheroes
Rating: 4/5



First sentence:

"Look! Up in the Sky!" said a kid entering the midway of Bazooka's Carnival.

Acquired: Received a review copy from Capstone Publishing.

Reason for Reading: Ds read aloud to me for his reader.

This new series "DC Super-Pets!" is a younger sibling to the already established "DC Super Heroes" series by the publisher. While the latter series is for established, and perhaps reluctant readers, this new series is for emergent or reluctant readers. All six books in the series are at a GR. 2 level with this one being at a RL:2.8. Following the same format as the established series, DC Super Pets uses colourful cartoon graphics for all the sound effect words. It goes on to make the books more appealing to younger readers by using different colours of text for each character's spoken words. There are also illustrations on every page, using a variety of formats from full-page to half-page to single illustrations amongst the text. This may sound crowded at first but the lines of text are double spaced creating a nice graphic display, easily read on each page.

This story features Beppo the Super-Monkey pet of Superman and Gleek, the Wonder Twins' space-monkey. The Wonder Twins, Jayna and Zan, are also characters in the story. I used to love the Twins on Saturday cartoons "The Justice League of America", I think was the one they were in. Anyway, Beppo is enjoying a day at the carnival when he hears screams and finds the villain Grodd the Gorilla setting all the animals in the animal show free, including the bears, crocodiles and zebras, when the lion is just about to be released Beppo steps in to stop this villain. The Wonder Twins are nearby and hear the screams for help so they and Gleek show up to help Beppo out and the four of them take on the huge powerful ape.

This is just what we've come to expect from this series of readers and both ds and I enjoyed it. Ds has not come across the Wonder Twins in his superhero world yet, so he especially enjoyed them and Gleek. Lots of non-stop action that keeps the young reader's attention and a fun book in the series.