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FLOOZOMBIES! by Patrick Carman

FLOOZOMBIES!

From the Fizzopolis series, volume 2

by Patrick Carman ; illustrated by Brian Sheesley

Pub Date: Oct. 4th, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-239392-0
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins

Following the events of The Trouble with Fuzzwonker Fizz (2016), gassy antics ensue in subterranean Fizzopolis after a batch of salubrious Fuzzwonker Fizz is contaminated by a sample of a rival junk-food manufacturer’s disgusting goop.

Logic plays at best a minor role in this return to the secret factory and research lab where the world’s burpiest and most popular soft drink is produced. The principle of “garbage in, garbage out” definitely comes into play when a disgruntled Fizzy (think Oompa Loompa) chucks a glob of Snood’s Flooze into Fizzopolis’ Fizzomatic machine. Out oozes a squad of outsized Floozombies, who escape into unsuspecting Pflugerville—leaving behind a trail of green goo that looks just like “fart putty,” which young Harold, son of Fizzopolis’ owner/inventor Dr. Fuzzwonker, of course follows. Fortunately, the white lad discovers that massive quantities of pure Fuzzwonker Fizz will dissolve the Floozombies. Unfortunately, that means finding a way to deliver 1,400 gallons of Fizz to the Snood Candy Factory, where the monsters are engaged in a world class sugar rush, without revealing Fizzopolis’ location. This is all accomplished to the accompaniment of thunderous belches in the narrative and lots of frenetic cartoons by Sheesley featuring popeyed characters, human and decidedly otherwise, with wide-open mouths.

Mind-, if not tooth-, rotting…but the premise is already turning a little flat.

(Adventure. 8-10)