The Bad Guys 2 – Mission Unpluckable

Aaron Blabey's second Bad Guys book, Mission Unpluckable, is a very silly heist story for 7 year olds about a wolf who REALLY wants the world to see he's a hero.

What happens

Mr Wolf has a plan. Sunnyside Chicken Farm keeps 10,000 chickens in tiny cages with no sunlight, and he wants every single one of them out.

The trouble is that the farm is impossible to break into. It has steel walls, guards, and alarms on the floor and the walls. Then there's a room full of laser beams.

So Wolf brings in an expert. Legs is a tarantula and a computer genius, and Mr Shark is terrified of him (he faints when Legs lands on his head). Meanwhile Mr Snake keeps telling everyone how much he loves chickens. They're so nice to eat. Sorry, to MEET.

What follows is a night-time break-in with a rope, an air vent and a 50 metre drop, and hardly anything goes to plan. Piranha ends up hiding in a sardine sandwich. Wolf ends up dangling from Snake over the drop. And who on earth leaves a snake to cross the lasers on his own?

Reading it is a lot like reading a comic. Most pages are panels with speech bubbles, the words are big and few, and the noisy bits come in huge capitals (BOING! SPLAT!). Some pages have barely a word on them, so the pictures carry the jokes. A child reading alone can zip through the whole thing in a sitting and feel very pleased with themselves.

There's plenty of bottom humour too. Piranha, dangling on the rope, asks Wolf if anyone's ever told him his face looks like one.

Under all the silliness there's something sweet about getting along. Shark finally admits that spiders freak him out. Legs points out that Shark can't help being a massive, terrifying sea monster either, so maybe Shark could just get over it. It's a lovely little moment for any child who's ever been judged on how they look.

The chicken mission wraps up properly, and the last few pages set up trouble for next time.

What to read next

The gang are old friends by the time this one opens. If Wolf, Snake, Shark and Piranha are new faces in your house, go back to the first Bad Guys book and begin there.