In this series of articles, I will give brief reviews of various children's books my son picked out at the library. Yes, I actually read them; well, except for the ones that get on my nerves due to lack of real value. All of the books, at the point, are graphic novels (comics), but they comprise a range of types, from little kids’ books, to fables, to folklore, to educational, to biographical, and more, covering many genres (although he's not ready for horror, yet).
I hope you'll find these reviews helpful in choosing books for your children. Remember, read a story each night when your child is young to foster a love of reading. Don’t let them watch TV or play video games in their bedroom as too much screen time (more than about 1-2 hours a day) has been scientifically proven to be bad for the brain development of any person who is not finished growing (i.e. around the age of 25 – think wisdom teeth).
Star Scouts (trilogy): “Star Scouts,” “Invasion of the Scuttlebots,” “The League of Lasers”
Star Scouts, The League of Lasers, and The Invasion of the Scuttlebots by Mike Lawrence.
My son's score: 10🌠
My score: 8🌠
What's taught: friendship, creative problem-solving, relationship problem, trouble-shooting, collaboration, teamwork, loyalty, the difficulties of moving and middle school, the value of the Scouts (albeit an interplanetary version), self-sacrifice, citizenship, comradeship, bravery and kindness.
Synopsis: Cartoonish art with a full color palette and lots of backgrounds where needed. The main character, Avani Patel, who has been transplanted by her father from her rural life to the big city, is accidentally transported to an alien spaceship by Mabel, an alien who is a Star Scout. Avani is bored with the Flower Scouts her father put her into, and is unhappy because most of them are superficial and mean, and quickly joins the Star Scouts. She is apparently exceptionally intelligent and skilled, as she masters some things that most humans probably never would, and distinguishes herself throughout the trilogy. Though she can sometimes be immature, as can Mabel, Pam and some of the others, she is generally a really nice person who deserves to be in the Star Scouts, and repeatedly turns enemies into friends because of her kind nature.
Star Scouts is where the story starts and she meets Mabel. She is introduced to the other scouts in her troop: Diane and Steve, and their scoutmaster, Roger who, although kind, is a bit inept and too lax. She learns to pilot a jet pack (with bruises), science, engineering, advanced maths, and visits many other planets. She tricks her father into sending her to Star Scouts’ Camp Andromeda because he thinks it’s for the Flower Scouts, where she ends up in a fierce rivalry with Pam and other methane breathers. She and her companions choose a variety of activities, which takes the reader through a series of mini-adventures, and culminates in a duel royale between Avani and Pam with high stakes: the loser must leave Star Scouts forever! They go through the first 4 tasks with each winning two and then must face the challenge of teleporting a wild creature off an alien planet. Avani aces it and gets the docile male and goes off to celebrate but when she hears that Pam got a female, she races onto the scene and saves Pam with the help of her friends. However, she magnanimously allows Pam to stay in the Scouts. Pam is about to thank her when HER troop friends interfere and she walks off in a huff. The leaders of the Star Scouts give all humans the right to join because of her example. At the very end, Jen from the Flower Scouts troop finds her with the robot she made in the contest and she gets introduced to the Star Scouts.
The League of Lasers finds Avani and Jen rocking with the other Star Scouts in their troop while something ominous from a mysterious source makes its way towards her home. A robot crash-lands in her backyard and she gets an invitation to join the elite, secret branch of the Scouts: the League of Lasers. She accepts and is immediately teleported to their secret base, where she finds Pam and other invitees are also waiting. Jen and the others have to try to cover for Avani because of her sudden disappearance, but her dad very quickly finds out the truth. At the league, they discover they’ve been invited by Mitch, and are given a fantastic, high-tech multi-tool and sent on a mission to survive on a wild world for a week with only that tool. Avani naively signs and is sent right away in an LoL ordeal vehicle, which is piloted by a snarky AI named OLLOV. It tricks Avani into crashing into an asteroid, which also takes down Pam, and Avani finds herself without the support of her OLLOV and only a container of water and salvaged ship parts. She starts setting up traps and exploring, and catches Pam in a trap, so they team up because of their different skillsets to survive together. Pam and Avani become friends through this ordeal.
Meanwhile, Mr. Patel insists on going to help rescue Avani and Pam, so he gets a rush introduction to the aliens. There is a great deal of rivalry between Mabel and Jen because Mabel feels she’s losing Avani, her only friend (in her opinion) to Jen. Avani and Pam discover they’re being hunted by the military of this not-so-wild planet, so they go on the lam and enlist the aid of a local child-alien, Frank, who helps them. Unfortunately, the military find them and capture Avani, who sacrifices herself so Pam can escape. The troop foolishly opts to try to navigate through a swarm of giant medussa jellyfish (in outer space), and their ship is badly damaged. Avani, meanwhile, is being mistreated by the alien military and scientists. Frank and Pam stage a daring rescue attempt and enlist the help of a scientist who’s not happy with how Avani’s being treated. Pam and Avani take the planet’s only spaceship – still untested – and escape, but Avani is left afloat in outer space while trying to find help, and Pam sacrifices her supply of methane without telling Avani until she’s gone (self-sacrifice is a recurring theme). Unfortunately, Avani’s methane runs out and she’s stranded before reaching help, but Mr. Patel launches himself into space and saves her, and then they get to Pam just in time to save HER with a lot of help from Diane. Frank and the scientist are saved from prison when the spaceship is returned with a threat. In the end, Frank joins the troop and the entire troop is inducted into the LoL.
The Invasion of the Scuttlebots starts with the integration of the O2 and CH4 breathers into one group by requiring that all of them wear their helmets in order to heal the rift between them. Mr. Patel is fully accepting by now of Avani’s membership and allows her to have dinner at Pam’s; they’ve become fast friends and another point of jealousy for Mabel, along with Jen. Avani foolishly invites Pam to go to Mabel’s re-birthday (think creatures that have multiple life stages, like butterflies and cockroaches), which turns out badly when giant-sized Mabel freaks out. However, by the next troop meeting, Mabel has calmed down and she and Avani apologize to each other. The next step in the integration plan of the leaders causes Pam and Mabel’s troops to be intermingled into 2 new troops, which angers some and pleases others, including Mabel, who refuses to be in Avani’s troop and is replaced by Pam. They are then sent out on various missions which end up forging bonds between some of them. Mabel, in her jealousy, accidentally sets off a robot called a scuttlebot and it goes to Earth to destroy Pam and Avani’s friendship…and take over the Earth. The scuttlebot finds a huge supply of scout cookies that sound suspiciously similar to Girl Scout cookies, eats a bunch and replicates itself until the entire warehouse is full of robots hiding in cookie boxes. Mabel is too ashamed to tell Avani but is forced to when the robots manage to capture large numbers of people in Avani’s town, but Avani doesn’t take the news. Mabel and Jen have become friends, and Jen says she’ll try to help smooth things over. The entire group travels to Earth to help stop the scuttlebots. After searching, the team finds out where the original robot is located, so they swoop in to take it out. Unfortunately, the warehouse is still full of box-covered scuttlebots, which swarm them. They’re just about to be overwhelmed when Mabel, arriving late, crash lands between the robots and the Scouts, temporarily saving them. They use a robot that Frank and Burt built (with help from others) while on clean-up duty earlier to help sweep up a lot of the robots, while Mabel shows her skills with a jet pack, with Jen on her back. But, when the original scuttlebot feels threatened, they all combine to form a giant scuttlebot, leading to the capture of nearly everyone except Jen and Mabel, who work together to save everyone. The amassed captives, the abrasive Flower Scouts, the Star Scouts and everyone else all team up, while Pam takes on a giant exoskeleton (seen previously) made of a force field to battle the giant ‘bot. Through serendipity while the battle rages between the two titans, the others discover that music disrupts the robots, so Frank, Mabel, Avani, Jen and Diane don their own giant exoskeletons complete with musical instruments and combine with Pam’s to form a giant (you guessed it) robot ala anime. The resulting music causes the titan scuttlebot to fall apart and the original is crushed by Mabel. Pam and Mabel make up, and Avani forgives Mabel with Pam’s intervention. The adults of the Star Scouts, of course, arrive too late to help. The leaders of the Star Scouts decide to integrate Earth into the galactic community. The end of the book fast-forwards 30 years to find Pam as leader and Avani as second-in-command.
I think this series is a good way to help tweens and teens navigate the quicksand of that phase of life by providing great (usually) examples.
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