Review: The Amazing Mini-Mutts by Donald Lemke

SUMMARY FROM NETGALLEY.COM:

On planet Earth, KRYPTO, ACE, SWIFTY, and other SUPER-PET pooches visit the Bowwow Boot Camp, a school for up-and-coming pups with powers. They're ready to show this new breed of heroes a few old tricks. Unfortunately, Brainicat, an evil cyborg kitty from the planet Colu, wants to teach these canine cadets a lesson as well. Using his hyper-forces, the villain shrinks the Bowwow Boot Camp to microscopic size and traps the mini mutts inside a glass bottle. To escape, these prep-school pups must step up and discover their own super hero identities.

The Amazing Mini-Mutts features our national kid contest winner's two pets! For ages 6-8. Part of the DC Super-Pets series.

MY TAKE:

Puppies are cute, so obviously this book is cute too. In The Amazing Mini-Mutts, some well-known dogs of superheroes (super-pets) are training a new batch of doggie superheroes. The focus of the book is on two tiny pups, Luna Moon and Sprightly Steve. They're not as strong or have superpowers like some of their puppy classmates, but as these two discover, sometimes, their weakness is also their strength.

I found the illustrations to not only be cute, they were also strategically placed throughout the book in order to enhance the story.

One thing that I found charming, but some people might find annoying, are the dog-related quips (pawpicked, top dog, pup quiz) which pepper the book.

Overall, though, The Amazing Mini-Mutts is worth a read, and I would definitely recommend it for a read-aloud session with your kids.

Thanks to NetGalley and Capstone for the e-copy. Publication date for the paperback edition of The Amazing Mini-Mutts is on February 1, 2012.

THE GOOD:

1. Highlighted texts and illustrations. This helps to break the visual monotony.
   
2. The underdogs win! I can't help but cheer for the underdogs.
3. There's a moral to the story.

THE BAD:

1. I think the story could have benefited if it had capitalized more on the dogs-of-superheroes concept.
2. The story was a little bit predictable.

FAVORITE QUOTE/S:

The ground shook like the back of a wet dog.

READ IT IF:

1. You like dogs and puppies.
2. You like colorful books.
3. You like superheroes and superpets.

RATING:

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