Melvin Beederman, Superhero – Attack of the Valley Girls

Greg Trine's Attack of the Valley Girls is a daft superhero comedy for 7 year olds about a hero with no bad guys left to catch.

What happens

Melvin Beederman went to the Superhero Academy. He has a red cape, a pet rat called Hugo and x-ray vision he can't switch off. (So everywhere he looks, he sees underwear. Not all of it clean.)

He also can't take off first time. Every morning it's "Up, up, and away" followed by Crash! Splat! Thud! Kabonk! He's usually flying by the fifth go.

His partner, Candace, is the only third-grader who can fly, and she gets it right first time. Melvin helps her with her maths homework in return.

The trouble this time is that Los Angeles has no bad guys left at all. Melvin gets so bored he asks a man walking his dog if he knows any criminals. The man says his neighbour's a mad scientist. But the mad scientist's son just makes Melvin a nice cup of tea!

Of course, trouble IS brewing. The mad scientist mixes an evil potion. His sausage dog, Schnitzel, runs off with it. A hawk mistakes Schnitzel for a rat and carries him off, the potion lands in the chicken feed on a farm, and the eggs end up in the biscuits of two teenage girls called Chantelle and Brittany. One bite and they decide to, like, totally take over Los Angeles.

It's completely bonkers and that's the joy of it. The narrator keeps butting in. Characters get told off for repeating what the narrator just said. The two villains even sneak into the narrator's house to read the manuscript, then decide not to peek at the ending because that would be cheating.

Poor Schnitzel gets a side story all of his own. He goes round singing "I Am a Wiener Dog, Not a Rat" so the owls get the message, and a rat called Geraldine falls in love with him. Who wouldn't cheer for him?

It's a brilliant pick for a reader who loves silly jokes and sound effects, and it's funny read aloud too. There's the odd bit of cheek, like one villain asking if her bum looks big in her jeans, and chickens who start swearing and wanting leather jackets.

What to read next

If your reader wants to see where it all began for Melvin, The Curse of the Bologna Sandwich starts on his graduation day, when he's top of his class and still needs five goes to get off the ground.