Officer Clawsome: lobster cop

by Brian "Smitty" Smith and Chris Giarrusso

2023 / 238 pages

In the opening scene a fish peddler (the fish is the peddler, not the goods) calls out "Fresh fruit here! Get your fresh..." only to have something "ZOOOM!" past and purée all his oranges and apples. Momentarily at a loss, the peddler looks down at the soupy mess, only to, one panel later, start smiling again calling out, "Fresh fruit juice here! Get your fresh fruit juice."

Comic genius? Not on its own, but just like a good dad-joke (are there any other kind?) the hiliarity builds with every one you layer on top. And there are oodles here, including some awful/awesome puns, starting with the hero of our story, the lobster cop "Officer Clawsome," called "Clawful" by the villains he arrests.

Like any good cop/buddy flick, Clawsome has a partner, the starfish Stariana who serves as both his badge of office, riding around on his chest, and as his ninja throwing star when needed. When the town's favorite bakery goes missing – the whole building, staff and all, are just gone – the twosome have to take on a whole host of underwater villains including Catburglarfish, the wrestler Masked Mussel, Brain Sturgeon, the Electric Eel, and a giant mechanized shark. It's all sorts of action, with all sorts of cinematic cliches thrown in just for dad to enjoy too – the best is the massive explosion in the background with Clawsome and Stariana strutting in the foreground.

One reviewer called this a “safe grandma buying read for the grandkids” and I'd agree. No cautions needed - this is just good clean, very silly fun. And it's so good that even though it weighs in at 200+ pages, your kids won't have had enough. Unfortunately, at this point there isn't a sequel.

But one can hope!

I survived the Nazi invasion, 1944

by Lauren Tarshis

art by Alvaro Sarraseca
2021 / 158 pages

Max and Zena are two Polish Jewish children who, at the time our story begins, have survived for almost 5 years living under Nazi rule. After Hitler's German troops conquered Poland, their mistreatment of the Jewish population started immediately. Jews were spat on, their synagogues burnt down, their businesses destroyed. In the town of Esties, as happened elsewhere, Jews were forced to all move to the same small neighborhood, which was then walled off with barbwire, so the Jews could never leave.

With no employment, food was hard to come by, so when Max and Zena come across a raspberry bush just on the other side of the fence, Max decides to risk it. He slips through the wires to grab some berries. They both get caught. To save his sister, Max attacks the Nazi guard, whose gun goes off in the struggle, the bullet hitting the soldier in the knee.

There's nothing to be done, but to run so off they both go, into the woods. During the first long night in the woods, Max does some remembering, and we're given the siblings' backstory, how their aunt had warned them not to move into the ghetto, and how their papa had argued it was best to just go along. Their aunt soon disappeared. To America? That's what Max hopes. When the Nazis then take away papa and the other men – to where no one is sure – Max and Zena are left to fend for themselves.

Flashback complete, we see the two escapees stumble across a farmer. Will he help, or turn them in? Thankfully he is a friendly sort, and after misdirecting the Nazi searchers, the farmer introduces them to the Polish underground. These are Polanders who have never stopped fighting the Nazis, and who have a safe place to hide in the woods. The siblings are delighted to discover that one of the underground fighters is their very own aunt!

CAUTION

When the Nazi soldier is shot in the knee there is some blood shown, but not in much detail. A little more gory is a two-page recounting of a story that Max's father used to tell him, about how David fought Goliath. We see rock-to-face with some blood spattering, but fortunately the giant's beheading is dealt with just outside of frame (David is described and depicted as a boy, maybe of 10 or 12, and and there is good reason to think he was an older teen instead).

The scene is echoed some pages later when Max has to resort to hurling a rock to stop two Nazis about to shoot his sister. Again, we see rock to face, some small blood smattering, and. maybe more disturbing, a frame of the soldier, seemingly dead, staring up blankly. A gunfight follows, concluding with Max realizing that the Nazi trying to kill them is just a boy only a little older than him. He realizes this just as his friend Martin fires and kill the young soldier. That's the most devastating scene in the story, made so, not because of the blood spattering but because we learn that Hitler was turning near-children into murderers.

CONCLUSION

This is a really well done graphic novel, recounting a part of the war that our Canadian, Dutch heritage children, might not be that familiar with: the Polish Jew's perspective. I'd recommend it for 12 and up, but add that many younger kids would be able to handle it too.

There are plans in place for at least 9 books in the I Survived graphic novel series, and so far I've read 6, and quite enjoyed 5 of them. The four other recommended ones are, in historical order:

• I Survived The Great Chicago Fire, 1871 – This is a bit of American history famous enough that many a Canadian has heard of it. A city full of quickly built wooden buildings goes through a heat wave, and while their fire department is impressive, one night they just can't keep up, and one mile by four mile length of the city goes up in flames. This comic has it all, with the brave young lead willing to stand up to bullies, and risk it all to save the girl. 
• 
  I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 – Our guides are a pair of young siblings, including a rascal of a boy who manages to discover ever last one of the Titanic's rooms, ladders and passageways. While two thirds of the passengers and crew lost their lives, everyone we're introduced to in the story makes it out, which makes this relatively tame account of this tragedy. 
• I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies, 1967  – This is the story of what led to two fatal grizzly bear attacks occurred on the very same night in the US's National Park system. . Melody Vega and her little brother are visiting their grandpa at his cabin in Glacier National Park – their mom recently died, and their dad thinks it's important for them to head out to their traditional their summer vacation spot even without her. But when a grizzly follows the girl right back to her cabin and tries to break down the door, Melody and her mom's best friend start investigating why the bears in the park are acting so strange. This isn't a Christian book, but the moral is: that humans have to take better care of God's creation – Christian kids should recognize the stewardship implications. People were dumping their garbage where bears could get it, which made for great shows for the tourists ("Come to the back of our inn and see the bears up close as they eat") but that got the grizzlies dangerously familiar with people. It also harmed the bears physically, from the glass and trash they ingested along with the food scraps. There is some minor nonsensical environmentalism along with the stewardship message: kids are told they can protect wildlife by not buying single serving bags of chips. It's quite the leap to go from showing the danger of feeding bears our garbage to saying that we're hurting them when we buy a big cookie wrapped in plastic. No, not if we throw it in the garbage. But this departure only amounts to a few sentences in the whole 150+ page book. 
• I Survived the Attacks of Sept. 11, 2011 – 11-year-old Lucas loves football, but football may not love Lucas. When his parents tell Lucas that his third concussion in two years means he has to stop playing, he skips school. He has to go talk to his Uncle Ben, the guy who got him interested in football in the first place. Both Uncle Benny and Lucas's dad are New York firefighters, and Lucas is desperately hoping his uncle can get his dad to change his mind. But as he's talking with his uncle, we see the first plane hit one of the city's Twin Towers. Lucas has to stay behind, as Uncle Benny and all the other firefighters head out to help. Author Lauren Tarshis initially considered having Uncle Benny be one of the victims, but realized that would be too much for her young readers. So all the main figures do make it out alive, but many of their friends don't. I thought this would be a heavy book for my kids. It wasn't any more so than the others. I get it now. I lived through this. They didn't; it's just more history for them; 

I wasn't impressed with I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916 where the new kid in town pranks his friends by spreading ketchup on the dock only to see a real shark swim up the river. Of course, now no one will believe him, and he ends up paying for his prank with a piece of his calf the shark bites off. That makes this unnecessarily grim. After all, why do kids need to learn about this particular shark attack? They can learn not to cry wolf without the panel by panel depiction of a shark attack. To be clear, it isn't super gory, but as there is no particular reason to get it, I'd argue there's also no particular reason to overlook any gore.

That said, I'm looking forward to the ninth book, scheduled for Spring 2024, called I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944.

The Mysterious Benedict Society

by Trenton Lee Stewart

512 pages / 2008

Reynie Muldoon is 11-year-old orphan who knows he is smart – he certainly reads more than any of the other boys at the orphanage – but he doesn't quite understand just how smart. The orphanage administrators seem to have an inkling, assigning him his very own tutor. His tutor, Miss Perumal, is certainly aware, so when she notices an ad in the newspaper offering a scholarship for gifted children who pass a special exam, she signs Reynie up.

It might seem just a multiple choice exam, but there's more being tested here than knowledge. I don't want to give too much of the fun away, but I'll share just one example. The children are told to take one pencil, and one pencil only; not any less or any more. Simple enough, except that as Reynie and several other children approach the exam building, the girl in front of him manages to drop her pencil down a sewer grating. The exam is just about to begin, and she has no pencil. Reynie stops to help but she tells him to just go – he doesn't have an extra pencil, so what can he do anyway? That's when Reynie takes out his pencil and breaks it in half. Problem solved. All it took was some creative thinking by a kind soul. The first half of the book is full of all sorts of puzzles like that, that involve not only clever thinking, but often thoughtfulness.

While dozens of children take the test, only Reynie, and three others pass. Like Reynie, they are all missing their parents, and they all have their own unique way of looking at the world, and their own gifts. George "Sticky" Washington can remember everything he reads, Kate Wetherall is quick thinking, athletic, and always positive, and Constance Contraire... well the children aren't quite sure what Constance is, other than grumpy. After passing the tests, they meet Mr. Benedict, the man behind it all. He explains to them that the world is facing a mysterious danger, that the world is only aware of as "The Emergency." No one quite seems sure what the emergency actually is, but it has everyone feeling discombobulated, and looking to their leaders for direction.

Mr. Benedict reveals that the Emergency is actually being caused by subliminal messages being sent over the radio and television airwaves. And the messages are coming from an elite children's school called the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened or L.I.V.E. (and note also, what it spells backwards). Mr. Benedict wants them to go undercover as his operatives at the school to find out what's really happening.

I loved the first half of the book best, with all its different puzzles to solve. But another highlight was the creepy L.I.V.E. Institute, and their rules. Kids might not catch it, but if parents are reading this out loud, it might be worth noting to your children that the double-speak here is of the sort we hear from our own political leadership, who will transform tolerance to be mean its opposite, and love to mean embracing what shouldn't be. Here are a few of the Institute rules: 

1. There are no rules here!
2. You can wear whatever you like. However, trousers, shoes and shirts are required at all times.
3. You don't have to bath if you don't want to. Simply be clean every day in class.
4. You may stay up as late at night as you wish. Lights are turned off at 10 PM and you must be in your room at that time.
5. You are free to go where you please. Please not, however, that you must keep to the paths and the yellow-tiled corridors

CAUTIONS

A common and troubling theme in children's books is for the kids to be much smarter than their parents, such that they don't feel a need to listen to the authorities in their lives. After all, their dumb parents just don't get them.  That the protangnists here are four pre-teen geniuses mean there is at least a little of that, but it's balanced off by the fact that Mr. Benedict himself is a genius and, and several of the other adults – his assistants Milligan, Number Two, and Rhonda – are highly capable. But there are still occasions – particularly in the first sequel – where the kids ignore an adult's order because they know better. And because they are geniuses, they often do actually know better! The author balances that out by the number of times the adults are involved in rescuing them – sometimes adults know best too.

There are 5 books in the series, with each clocking in at 400+ pages, so with the amount of time a child might put into it, it is worth noting the complete lack of spirituality in the series. This is 2,000+ pages of God being almost entirely ignored. The only exception I can recall is in the prequel, Book 5, in which a mention is made of a chapel service.

CONCLUSION

Overall, this is a fairly gentle series – it could make for bedtime reading without much danger of giving anyone nightmares. I appreciated it for making television one of the tools of the bad guys, as it so often is in real life too. There is also an implicit warning against overreaching government control, with the bad guys trying to use the Emergency as an excuse for them to seize the political reins of power. This isn't really a political book, but what politics is has, I rather like.

There are three sequels to The Mysterious Benedict Society, then a prequel for #5 telling the young life of their mentor Mr. Benedict, and finally, a companion puzzle book for #6 that invites us to become a puzzle-solver too, just like the Benedict Society. The series, in order, is: 

1. The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007, 512 pages) 
2. The Perilous Journey (2008, 440 pages) 
3. The Prisoner's Dilemma (2009, 400 pages) 
4. The Riddle of Ages (2019, 416 pages) 
5. The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict (2012, 480 pages) 
6. Mr. Benedict's Book of Perplexing Puzzles, Elusive Enigmas, and Curious Conundrums (2011, 176 pages).

I'd recommend the first two and last two. The first of the bunch has an originality to it, and a very clever reveal at the end that'll have you saying "Of course!" even as you had no inkling of it before that moment! The second doesn't reach the same heights... but how could it? It is, however, very fun. The second-best book in the series is actually the fifth, the prequel about the young Mr. Benedict, and his own adventures in an orphanage. I read about 15 minutes of this to our girls each night, for about 2 months straight, and they were always asking for more. While the puzzle book was interesting, I was glad we got it out of the library and didn't buy it.

I wouldn't bother with books 3 and 4. In these two, Constance has developed telepathy, and since mind-reading is beyond all of us (even as figuring out puzzles isn't) this development makes these two books a good deal less relatable, and consequently less interesting. Telepathy also seems a cheat – how hard is it to outwit your enemies when you can read their minds? To top it off, Constance also learns how to manipulate minds with her telepathy, influencing them to think as she wants them to. This takes us into the realm of mind-control, not by machine as in the first book, but by supernatural powers. and for a decidedly unspiritual book, this is getting too weird for my liking. Thankfully each book is entirely self-contained, so it is easy to get just 4 out of the 6, without any sense of incompleteness.

Books 1 and 2, along with 5 and 6 total more than 1,500 pages of reading, which should keep even the most avid bookworm in your family chewing for a long time.