Starred review from May 1, 2021
Will Shark and Bot survive being Glitter Bugs at summer camp? Shark would rather have stayed home writing poetry. Bot actually wanted to go to Space Camp. But both find themselves at Camp Sweet Sunshine, where camp director Tilton Findleswip hosts a mixture of racially diverse human and species-diverse animal kids who, except for Shark and Bot, are 11s on the 1-to-10 happiness scale. Shark and Bot survive a glitter encounter and escape signing up for the Sweety-Fluff Happy Choir, but what about the Ghost of Sweet Sunshine, who haunts the boys' bathroom? They settle in as the absurdity ratchets up. Bot lives through mandatory swimming (their counselor puts him in a giant hamster ball). Shark succeeds at craft time (with Bot's help). They get care packages from home that include the newest Glo-Nuts book. They even come up with a killer (nothing deadly) act for the talent show. Summer camp turns out to be more fun than they expected...despite all the rainbow sparkles and uber-happy song breaks. Yanish's second graphic novel for new-to-chapter-books readers is even more fun than the series opener. The unlikely duo of Shark and Bot (with Batty the wombat in tow) inhabits large, colorful panels full of fourth-wall-breaking humor and wombat facts. Facts about wombats and instructions on how to draw Batty appear at the close. Age-appropriate, deadpan shark--er, snark at its best. (Graphic fiction. 6-9)
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