The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
Written by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
Illustrated by Vitale Mangiatordi
336 pages – ages 9+
Published by Marvel Press on February 7, 2017
Synopsis – Doreen Green knows that she’s different. After all, there is literally a perfectly legit reason why she obsesses over squirrels. You see, Doreen Green is a fourteen-year-old with a squirrel tail. But now she’s moved across the country from sunny, brilliant, cheery California to…New Jersey. What if there are no squirrels?!
Luckily, there ARE squirrels! But Doreen’s new town is pretty messed up. There are graffiti “artists” and wild dogs running loose! So, Doreen decides to do what any good citizen should do – clean up her town. And it goes fine, until she finds out that she now has an arch-nemesis. Which stinks. Now it’s up to Squirrel Girl to stop this squirrel-hating psycho from destroying her town!
What I Thought- I knew about Squirrel Girl from reading comics. She had a brief run with her own comic but she really is a minor character so I was interested to see what the Hale’s did with her in this middle grade novel. This book is actually really funny. There is just a lot of details that make for a humorous read. One of the ones I like is that there are footnotes throughout the book from Doreen, because she is reading the book at the same time as you are! There are also text messages between Doreen and some prominent superheroes that are absolutely hilarious. Doreen is a very enjoyable character that seems a bit too naive at times. Mr. and Mrs. Hale are a great writing team, and have the voice of young teenagers down perfectly. They make the characters believable. Along with that, the setting is well-described, and doesn’t really diss New Jersey (which usually is an easy target), just her fictional, messed-up town. There are also black and white squirrel illustrations throughout the book that were a nice touch. This was an altogether enjoyable read, and a nice foray into the Marvel universe from a lesser known superhero!
I give this book five out of five bookworms!
