SUPERKID IN TRAINING

The author of the Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator series piles on the yuks in this slapstick science-fiction opener.

Daniel is outraged that he suddenly has to share a bedroom with Iggy, his way-too-cute (“Why dis not working??!!!! Dis make me so angwy!!!!”), not-quite-toilet-trained little brother. Wider disasters threaten, though, after Iggy swallows new neighbor Alistair’s bug collection and begins to acquire insect powers and characteristics. It seems that Alistair and his parents are actually aliens from the planet Blaron, visiting Earth to gather new varieties of broccoli (which they call “frackenpoy”) because that’s all they can eat. Fortunately, Iggy’s symptoms can be suppressed with a Human Normalizer, which looks like a pacifier. Unfortunately, the Blaronites have another device that combines Daniel’s obnoxious friend Chauncey Morbyd and a cardboard carton into a robot that will eat the entire universe. Despite a bit of sibling reconciliation at the end, the plot, like the cast, is two-dimensional at best. Readers who relish silly names, broccoli jokes, domestic chaos and gross goo of various sorts in their fiction, as well as lots of robots and aliens, though, will definitely have no cause for complaint. Moran’s frequent illustrations range from small views of popeyed cartoon faces to diagrams of DNA molecules and, for some incidents or punch lines, sequential panels.

Labored, but it doesn’t take psychic powers to see how this could be a crowd pleaser.