Rise of the Robot Army

April 15, 2016
A frustrated eighth-grader would rather spend his days saving the world as an anointed superhero than deal with the reality of his life as a middle schooler, in this sequel to The Attack of the Alien Horde (2015).Miles Taylor prepares for his first day as an eighth-grader after soaring through a summer of adventures as Gilded, his inherited golden-caped-superhero identity. The white 13-year-old is no longer the insecure new kid at school. He starts his second year at Chapman Middle School empowered with the secret of his superhero identity, a secret that he has only shared with Henry, his African-American best friend, and his father. The story begins as Miles grapples with his new-normal inner conflict: he'd really rather be the significant superhero full-time and not the insignificant eighth-grader who is daily bullied by the middle school football star. After disobeying his father by donning the golden cape to save the day for a nonsuperhero emergency of a multicar wreck, Miles and Henry are kidnapped by a cape-hungry U.S. Army general who somehow gets away with kidnapping minors and injecting them with truth serum. Venditti goes even darker when the general orders robots to kill Gilded and the pre-pubescent innocents. Higgins' grayscale comics-style sequential panels periodically punctuate the prose narrative, sharing the storytelling mode.What starts as a charming story morphs rather jarringly into a questionable golden-cape tug of war between an eighth-grader and a dry old general who's mysteriously acquired a budget to create a robot army. (Adventure. 9-12)

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June 1, 2016

Gr 5-7-This follow-up to Attack of the Alien Horde relies on alternating sections of text and comics to continue the adventures of a middle schooler who can transform into a superhero. Miles has spent the summer using a magical cape to secretly change into the powerful Gilded and save his fellow citizens of Atlanta from crime and natural disasters. But when he starts eighth grade, he finds he's still an average kid. Embarrassed by the school bully and hurt by his mother's move to Florida, Miles uses the cape to cheer himself up. This attracts the attention of a megalomaniacal U.S. Army general intent on destroying Gilded with the titular Robot Army. It's an exciting premise with appealing characters, but the first 20 pages of the book contain little action as they detail the evil general's motivations and the protagonist's backstory. The pace picks up once the comic inserts start, and Miles, along with old friend Henry and new ally Lenore, battles the general, with a satisfying conclusion. The illustrator has chosen to draw Miles as a light-skinned boy and his alter ego Gilded as a bald, dark-skinned man, a detail that's not addressed anywhere else in the novel. VERDICT The slow start will make this title most appealing to fans of the first book.-Beth Wright Redford, Richmond Elementary School Library, VT

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