I have been in touch with my inner seven-year-old male self. It/he is in there, I can assure you. I have been reading – and enjoying – The Slime Squad vs The Conquering Conks, written by grown-up boy Steve Cole.
Whereas I don’t for a minute intend my regular readers to read the Slime Squad books for their own entertainment, I can recommend Steve’s slime heroes for young boys. Girls too, but mostly boys. It is really very slimy. And pretty heroic.
It seems like only months since I read the first Slime Squad book, and here we are at the end. (I think the answer is that I came late to this bunch of slime heroes, although Steve does write very fast. But they’ve been around for a year or two.) You know how fond I am of my happy endings, and the excellence of the Slime Squad means Trashland is saved, and the heroes can use their time on other things, once the ghastly conks have been defeeted.
Smelly feet are powerful weapons, but so were the double-barrelled snotguns. This book is full of yuck; the more the merrier. The conks are devious, but Plog and his fellow super-heroes are deviouser. Naturally.
Eight books is pretty short for a series, but maybe the rubbish ran out, and no doubt we’ll soon see another series of books for the reluctant (but not for long!) boy reader. Steve knows what they like, and you can’t beat snot and killer tissues. How will anyone get small boys to blow their noses ever again?
Before I leave you, I must declare a certain bias.
It’s my first. And probably my last. But as Steve said, to be in at the end of the Slime Squad is quite appealing.
Now where are those killer tissues when you need them? I have a suspected water leakage in the eye department.
