I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: “Neverending Afro Circus” (2012).

If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar 3, you’ll recognize this song as the earworm that you will be singing all the way home.  And that your kids will no doubt be singing for days.

I actually want to jump in and say that I saw Madagascar 3 without seeing Madagascar 2 and I was quite lost (and missed a lot of in-jokes, apparently) for the first 20 or so minutes.  Who would have guessed that a kids movie could do that to you?

Anyhow, back to this song.  C. and T. love it.  And it turns out that YouTube loves it too.  There are dozens of different videos of varying lengths (from 10 seconds to 59 minutes!!) repeating this wonderful nonsense.  But for real neverending Afro Circus, please visit AfroCircus.com and see how much you can stand.

For a measly ten minute loop, please enjoy this:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aELcXyjpts%5D

[READ: July 2012] Danger Guys series

We loved Droon so much we had to see what else Tony Abbott had written.

Turns out that he has written a lot of books and a bunch of series.  In addition to Droon he has written four books that are not part of any series, a series called The Haunting of Derek Stone and a brand new series called UnderWorlds.  UnderWorlds looks like a great series for C., although Haunting and the stand alone books seem like they might be a little too old for him.  He also has some older series like Don’t Touch That Remote!, Goofballs, Time Surfers and The Weird Zone.  (I think that’s all of them).

He also has this Danger Guys series, which I believe comprised his first novels.

My major complaint about the series is…why is it out of print?  Why was it so hard for me to find?  I had to do an Inter Library Loan and the copies I received were so beat up that we may wind up being the last people to read them!  This is a real shame because these books were fantastic!  The series is about two boys Noodle (the smart one) and Zeke (the athletic one).  They are best friends and do everything together.  I’m not exactly sure how old they are…I’m guessing middle school?  In each book they get into an escalating series of adventures which can be resolved by logic, brains, strength and sometimes a little luck.  The books are mildly scary (the Halloween one is the most scary but even that…not really), they’re not violent or gross, but they are full of adventure and they’re very funny (an Abbott specialty).  There were several moments that C. was laughing very hard at these.

There are six books in total in the series.  And because the books aren’t radically different from each other, I’m only going to say a few lines about each.

Danger Guys.  This first book was really great.  The series starts on such a high note!  The boys go to the mall to check out a brand new adventure store, Danger Guys.  On the wall of the store is a photo of famous adventurers including a husband and wife adventure team who are still exploring.  There’s some wonderful goofiness about being on line to win free stuff when they get pushed over by some big bad guys.  And the boys’ enjoyment of the store is great.  Zeke wanders through the store and stumbles on something pretty big.  Noodle runs over to see what it is and then in a blink of an eye they are on a real adventure.  They wind up in a truck full of gear which leads them to a cave.  A mystery is underfoot!  The kids use Noodle’s brain to rig up some pretty clever ways to fight the bad guys, and there are plenty of nods to Indiana Jones (which C.  just watched, but I don’t think he quiet appreciated in the book).  We liked this one so much that I read it straight through in one bedtime (staying up much too late).

Danger Guys Blast Off is set at the Mayville carnival.  In this one, they climb on a carnival ride and the rocket they are in comes loose, propelling them around town.  (This one seemed a bit more far-fetched than the previous one as you might see).  There is a sneezing scientist (who comes back in another book) who has nefarious plans for destroying Mayville.

Hollywood Halloween was a super fun book. It’s another one I read straight through.  Although I may have enjoyed this one more than C.  The boys get tickets to Paragon Studios for a behind the scenes tour.  We recently went on a behind the scenes tour at Disney and the kids loved it, so at least C. knew what this was all about.  Anyhow, there is an electrical storm that makes the studio computer go haywire and which makes all of the mechanical creatures on the studio lot go berserk.  The kids are chased by a dinosaur (out of Gorgatron Park–Abbott is clearly having fun spoofing here), a mummy, a werewolf (I felt bad that C. didn’t know what a werewolf was, I need to give this kid some horror lessons).  They wind up on the set of a haunted house and a Star Trek type show.  And they get to use laser swords from Space Wars (ha).  This one was definitely the scariest of the bunch, although, again, not really scary.  Their way out of the trouble was the least logical and depends on knowing some behind the scenes information about movie making (I’m actually not even sure if C. knew enough about movies to get the joke).  But he laughed a lot and I thought the story was lots of fun.

Danger Guys Hit the Beach.  Noodle and Zeke believe they’re in for a boring day at the beach.  But when their mother tells them about a secret event (the kids assume buried treasure) they are off and ready.  But the secret event proves to be seriously large waves–which makes the local surfers super psyched, dude.  Noodle and Zeke aren’t terribly interested in surfing, but when they get stuck in a boat with a propeller they can’t shut off, they find themselves in the midst of a large wave and a mysterious island.  To top it off, there’s a sea monster and some cool scuba gear.  Underwater adventures are always fun, and this one used the water to very good effect.

Danger Guys on Ice sees the return of the evil sneezing scientist.  But more importantly it features the Pit of Death!  (C. liked that a lot).  I was of course terrified at my greatest fear come true: the crashing of a ski lift.  There’s lots of good humor in this one as Noodle tries to ride his father’s skis (which are so old-fashioned as to be hilarious).  The mad scientist from Blast Off shows up again, and the kids have some fun at his expense.  But I feel the story lost the plot somewhere in the middle.  It’s interesting to me that the two books I liked the least both had this mas scientist character.

Danger Guys and the Golden Lizard brings us back to the excitement of the first book and ends the series on a really high note. The opening was simply fantastic, a wonderful cliffhanger into the action (and technically unrelated to the rest of the story).  It was also a wonderful opening for what proved to be a very exciting story.  The boys are invited to accompany the famous husband and wife explorers from the first book on a trip to Central America (their parents don’t mind because they are going on a cruise and won’t miss them–implausible but hilarious).  They are seeking the Golden Lizard and there are all the trappings of a wonderful spy movie here–bad guys, overheard clues, and things that are uniquely Abbott–an allergic reaction to mustard (One of the funnest things to read aloud ever) and a love of waffles that really made this story stand out.  The ending is as implausible as the idea that the kids will be allowed to go adventuring in Central America, but it’s a wonderful implausibility–one that allows kids to have their own adventures.  I really loved these books a lot.  And so did C.

My main gripe about the books is that they place an illustration of what happens in the chapter at the beginning of each chapter…they didn’t have this phrase in usage back then but hey–spoiler alert!  It really reined some of the surprises within.  C. didn’t seem to mind though.  I can also say that in general I didn’t really like the illustrations all that much either.

I’m really psyched to get into some more of these series–to the Inter Library Loan desk!