Galaxy Games: The Challengers

Fishbone (The Penguins of Doom) fulfills every alien-obsessed kid's dream with this first book in the Galaxy Games series, about a pressure-filled cosmic challenge between 11-year-old Tyler Sato and M'Frozza, a cheerful squidlike Mrendarian. For his birthday, Tyler's Japanese relatives name a star--TY SATO--after him, which turns out to be a spaceship heading toward Earth. Tyler ends up captaining a team of top athletes from around the world to take on a manipulative team of Easter Islandesque statues in a complicated game of tic-tac-toe. Complemented by Beavers's comic book-style artwork, Fishbone's narrative is ripe with kid-friendly humor--i.e., Earth's radio and TV transmissions are picked up by the toilets on the Mrendarian ship--and many of the plot twists could be straight from the "what if" imaginings of a fourth-grade classroom. However, the story can be a little too jam-packed: a subplot involving a Japanese cousin doesn't feel pertinent, and inklings of tension between Tyler and his workaholic father simply disappear. Though Fishbone clearly sets up the next book, he gives Tyler enough of a victory to leave readers satisfied. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)

Gr 4-6--When Tyler Sato's Japanese relatives name a star after him for his 11th birthday, they set in motion a chain of events that will alter the course of the entire planet. The star is actually a Mrendarian spaceship on its way to Earth to engage in an intergalactic athletic challenge. The captain of its team, M'Frozza, believes that Tyler is Earth's greatest kid athlete and needs his help to avoid a humiliating forfeit in the Galaxy Games. Tyler is made captain of Earth's team and must select the top young athletes from around the globe to join him. Before they begin to train, he and his team are tricked into a challenge from another planet, and the consequences of a loss would be devastating. The first title in the series introduces a number of characters but is slow to develop the promised action. The first half alternates between Tyler in Nevada, M'Frozza on her spaceship, and Daiki, Tyler's cousin, in Tokyo. These shifts provide different perspectives on the impending encounter and introduce aspects of Japanese pop culture but may lose some readers who are waiting for the competition. Several plotlines run concurrently with most left dangling, presumably to be picked up later in the series. Black-and-white illustrations highlight characters and scenes in a comic-book style that complements the text. There is plenty of humor, and the revelation of the actual sport in the Galaxy Games will be an amusing twist for readers who stick with the story.--Amanda Raklovits, Champaign Public Library, IL