The Bad Guys 10 – The Baddest Day Ever

Aaron Blabey's The Baddest Day Ever is the tenth Bad Guys book, a very loud and very silly alien showdown for 7 year olds, told in big pictures and speech bubbles.

What happens

Earth has a new ruler. Prince Marmalade is a grinning alien with eyes on stalks, a crown and a LOT of teeth. He's just told the whole planet that he is now the sun, and everyone else has to orbit him.

The gang have no superpowers left and they're feeling pretty low. So who's going to stop him?

Legs the spider, for a start. He's already hiding on the alien mother ship with a helper called Rhonda (even Mr Wolf has to ask who she is). Mr Wolf and Agent Fox fly up to help him grab the controls. Down below, Mr Piranha gets a surprise visit from his papa, who's brought hundreds of brothers and cousins with him from Bolivia.

It reads like a comic. Most pages are one big picture with a speech bubble or two, or a strip of small panels. The sound effects are HUGE (NIBBLE! BOOM! YEEE-HAAAAW!). A child reading alone can whizz through it in one sitting.

The jokes come thick and fast. Mr Shark goes into battle disguised as a ballerina, tutu and all. Piranha gets so excited about the team's possible new name that he thinks he might have peed a little.

There's a sweet thread running through it too. The team start telling each other their real names. When Agent Fox tells Mr Wolf hers, he tells her his (it's Moe), and she gives him a peck on the cheek. He goes very dreamy.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The book opens at a graveside, with the gang saying goodbye to Mr Snake. Later on Marmalade dangles Agent Fox over his enormous mouth and threatens to eat her on live TV. It's all cartoonish and the gloom doesn't hang around, but a reader who's very fond of the gang might find that first page a bit of a shock.

This one drops you straight into the middle of a crisis that's been building over the earlier books. It makes the most sense if your reader already knows the gang and their Good Guys Club.

What to read next

If they're new to Mr Wolf and his friends, start right at the beginning with The Bad Guys Episode One. It's the very first book about the same gang, so they'll know exactly who everyone is by the time they get back here.