How to Sell Your Family to the Aliens

October 1, 2017

Gr 3-5-Happy "Hap" Conklin Jr. is not your average 10-year-old. For one, he has to shave his beard three times a day. His father is the inventor of a ton of wacky gizmos and gadgets, and each of his five sisters are weird in their own right-one of them can see the future. Meanwhile, his mean and maniacal grandmother wants to take over the galaxy. Hap's plan is to get rid of his grandma, but he accidentally winds up selling his entire family to aliens. Strange and original with just the right amount of juvenile humor, this story features odd and endearing characters and a wonderfully weird plot. Hap and his family are a delightful cross between dysfunctional and perfectly loving. VERDICT A fun addition to middle grade collections in need of goofy humor.-Elizabeth Speer, Weatherford College, TX

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2018
The Conklins are "a family of freaks" thanks to Grandma's experiments...can they keep Baby Lu safely on the "normal-kid" end of the spectrum?Ten-year-old Happy Conklin Jr.'s dad is an inventor; most of his designs have flopped, but his "Buns of Abs" made the family millions...all of which Grandma took for herself. She also likes to test the inventions out on her grandchildren. "That's One Handsome Baby" gave Hap Jr. a beard he has to shave daily. "Baby Master" gave Kayla the ability to see possible futures. Beth and Eliza were born fraternal twins, but "Perfect O'Specs" made them identical. And "The Doorganizer" linked light-fingered Alice to a pocket dimension where she stores everything she steals. While protecting their youngest sibling from Grandma's predacious experimentation, Hap Jr. inadvertently sells his entire family to an alien reality show; can he get them back and avoid the FBI with the help of the school pet and his beard? Animator and cartoonist Noth's debut children's book is nowhere near as zany or as much fun as it wants to be. The setup drags, and readers will find the premise that Hap's parents let Grandma do what she does awfully hard to believe. Line drawings and occasional comic strips throughout (final art not seen) depict the family as white and add some zip--but not enough to make this a purchase for any but the most generous of budgets. Sequel likely...unless it gets sold to the aliens too, and that'd be no big loss. (Science fiction. 8-11)

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February 15, 2018
Grades 5-8 Having neglected to read the fine print, young Happy Conklin Jr. discovers that he's signed away his whole family, instead of just his evil grandma, to alien Gubbinsfor a Wrastlinsanity death match in a galactic arena. Since he likes his parents and four (at least) of his five sisters, a rescue is in order. Unfortunately, before she's taken, Happy's sister Kayla, who can see into multiple futures, tells him that anything he does will almost certainly end badly. Nonetheless, off he stumbles on the way to a climactic tag-team bout (along with, of all people, his grandma) against a giant fangy eel monster. As a fifth-grader who has to shave three times a dayhe was a test subject for one of his inventor dad's experimentsHap is nonetheless far from the only oddball member in a notably quirky cast. Readers will be likewise amused by the random twists, silly inventions, and frequent spot drawings and sequential panels that New Yorker cartoonist Noth weaves into his droll, if occasionally surreal, debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)