Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 05/01/2014 Gr 1–3—Hooey's Higgins's teacher, Miss Troutson, is a little tired of the uproar caused by her death-defying class: staple guns used as weapons, children's legs being used as a sawhorse, and a student nearly getting hammered in the face. She decides it is time to teach them the importance of safety and asks the class to complete a project over the weekend; each group must design "something that will make the world a safer place." To sweeten the pot, Miss Troutson offers a pair of tickets to the local fair to the winner. Hooey and his classmate Twig have a hard time coming up with ideas, so they enlist Hooey's older brother to help out. Together they come up with the Tremendous Trousers, the world's safest pants. They build capital for their endeavor by tricking the school bully into sitting on an ant hill, resulting in a mad, pantless rush across the schoolyard. After that, it's up to them to build the safest, most tremendous trousers ever seen. Students who like their characters less than perfect will appreciate this British import. The illustrator has expertly displayed their silliness with his simple, childlike designs, reminiscent of a simplified Quentin Blake. Despite the excellent drawings and rare moments of laugh-out-loud situational humor, the plot feels uninspired and drags in places. Purchase where the first title in the series is popular.—Devin Burritt, Wells Public Library, ME - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 07/01/2014 After his lively debut in Hooey Higgins and the Shark (BCCB 4/12), young Hooey is back for another adventure. A successful routing of the class bully (Hooey convinces him to unknowingly sit on an anthill, causing him to be bitten and to doff his pants) and a class contest centered on safety prompt Hooey, his pal, Twig, and his older brother, Will to invent TremTrows, short for Tremendous Trousers that will protect the wearer from harm. The kids have high hopes for the bubble- wrap-stuffed sweatpants, especially after they add bottles of cola and mint-filled balloons which will, in theory, inflate like air bags when the mints hit the cola. Unfortunately, during their contest entry’s public presentation, Twig accidentally releases all the mints at once when he is hit in, erm, a sensitive area with a soccer ball, resulting in a cola-soaked audience and a failure to win the prize. The shock of the explosion does, however, cure a small student’s persistent hiccups, and the student’s grateful father rewards Hooey with three tickets to the local fair. Voake excels at quick pacing and pithily hilarious description (“Twig looked bewildered, as if he was having one of those dreams where meerkats ride bicycles and juggle with melons”), and this well-written romp will appeal especially to the boys who goof off in the back of the classroom with rubber bands and paperclips. Dodson’s monochromatic ink line and wash art features exaggerated figures and a scribbly, spattery look that complements the rowdy storyline, and frequency of the illustrations will further entice reluctant readers. It’s hard to beat exploding pants for sheer kid appeal, and this would make a LOL-inducing readaloud as well as a splendid readalone selection. JH - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.