By Chris Grabenstein
Amazon rating: 4.7/5, grades 3-7
Good Reads: 4.49/5
Common Sense Media: 5/5, ages 8+
4Rbooks: 5/6, 4-7
288 pages
Synopsis:
Jake McQuade is still the smartest kid in the universe. This drives Zane Zinkle, the former smarter kid in the universe, crazy. Zane is the inventor of the zPhone and a tech genius. With the help of his Artificial Intelligence creation Lulu, Zane is planning on completely dominating the marketplace and eliminating everyone who could challenge him.
Jake and his friend Kojo are invited to Zinkle’s Genius Camp with four other genius children. They are there to compete in a series of games and contests, the winner to earn a position with Zinkle’s company. But Zinkle has more sinister and evil ideas for his competitors.
Jake, Kojo, Grace, and Abia (from Mr. Lemoncello’s games) must work together to defeat Zinkle and potentially save the world from his evil genius… his brain and Lulu.
Parental Guidance: medium-low
Lots of fart jokes.
Apps on the phones control the minds of the users.
Marshmallows drain the brains of those who eat them.
Children are placed in danger by robots.
A scientist is kidnapped.
Recommendation:
Chuck defeats Skynet (Terminator reference) would be a great way to look at this novel. This is a fun and easy read. If it wasn’t for the fart jokes, I might have rated this a 6/6. Lots of random facts to enjoy, many puzzles to solve, and positive role models throughout.
The fart jokes might make this a tough classroom read-aloud which is too bad because there would be great opportunities for discussions about social media and its influence on buying habits, fads, and trends.
Good for reluctant readers and advanced readers who like puzzles and facts.
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