Read Misadventures of Max Crumbly 02 – Middle School Mayhem free in the Little Reads app.
Rachel Renee Russell's Max Crumbly Middle School Mayhem is a laugh-out-loud superhero caper for 9 year olds that starts with Max sitting on a squashed pizza, surrounded by burglars.
This is the second of Max's journals and it carries straight on from the first. Doug "Thug" Thurston shoved him in his locker after school. He escaped through the air vents. Then he stumbled on three crooks pinching the school's brand-new computers.
Now it's night, the building's empty and he's wearing a borrowed ice princess costume as his superhero outfit (long story).
His only backup is Erin from the computer club. She's got into the school's lights, cameras and PA system from her laptop, and she worries about him constantly. Max finds this VERY annoying. You can probably guess how much he actually needs her.
The burglars are hopeless. Ralph is the boss, Tucker is the skinny one and Moose mostly cares about the pizza Max landed on. One of them gets stuck in a vent and loses his trousers. Max takes another down with a bucket of homemade slime and a roll of cling film. Who else would think of that?
Reading it is like listening to Max talk. Everything's in capitals, he stops mid-chase to share his rules for being a superhero, and at one point he writes a rap about crash-landing on the pizza.
There's a real boy underneath all the jokes, though. He's got asthma and panic attacks, and his inhaler runs out halfway through the night. He's got no friends at school apart from Erin (he'd never admit that out loud). And he's terrified his parents will send him back to being homeschooled by his grandma.
The crooks do talk about getting rid of him, and there's a lot of toilet humour, sick and bad language he tells you about without spelling out. It's all played for laughs, but a very anxious reader might not love the idea of being trapped in school overnight.
If you've got a reader who's grown out of their first diary books and wants something with more action, this is a great step up.
And if they haven't met Max yet, start with Locker Hero, the first of his journals. That's where Thug first stuffs him in that locker, and you'll find it in the library.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
No trial. No payment. Just download.
