Source: Publisher – I received this in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Publisher: Random House Children’s Books
Series: Awesome Dog 5000 #1
Edition: Hardcover, 208 Pages
Genre: Children’s Sci-Fi
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
Rating: 3/5 StarsHeads up, DOG MAN lovers! Watch out, readers of BAD GUYS! Robotic dog AWESOME DOG 5000 is in the neighborhood and he’s. . . well, he’s awesome.
Marty, Ralph, and Skyler might make the ultimate secret combo when battling alien-slime ninjas in their favorite video game, but in real life they’re just regular kids. That is, until the three best friends discover Awesome Dog 5000, a robotic dog with very real power-ups. Awesome Dog can “bark” a sonic boom, “walk” at speeds over three hundred miles per hour, and “fetch” with an atomic cannon. Life for Marty, Ralph, and Skyler just got a major turbo-boost!
Attention, readers! AWESOME DOG 5000 is a wild action-comedy told through a mix of text and black-and-white illustrations, with a mystery to solve at the end. Can you handle the awesomeness?
Awesome Dog 5000 is a sci-fi comedy of an adventure that moves at a fast pace with plenty of chuckles to be had and illustrations to enjoy.
Awesome Dog falls in the odd genre that is the comic novel type stories, which contains books like Dork Diaries and Big Nate. It works really well for this type of story, which incredibly fast pace and full of some interesting ideas that definitely need some pictures to make them truly pop. I think where this one is a bit underwhelming is in the actual story portion itself, because it moves so quick it at times it seems like it completely misses point B when moving from A to C. The story itself is almost conversational in the nature, which makes it a pretty relaxed read and does make it feel like you’re kind of in on it. So in that regard, I think it does make up for the lack of depth, and I think the target audience will really enjoy how goofy and off the wall the story gets.
I definitely liked Marty, Ralph, and Skyler who are very different people but have a shared interest in video games which helps solidify them as a team. I think it does a great job of letting kids know that being different and “uncool” by other standards is alright and that finding friends can be easy if you’re willing to open up.
Overall I think this is a cute novel that has some charm to it with its relaxed tone and quick pacing, and it would definitely be a good recommendation for those reluctant readers who might find other books a bit too dull to focus on. .
In Libris Veritas 