Ruben Bolling

I'm sure you, like me, have seen a lot of stories (in books, movies, shows, etc.) where a rational explanation is found to a scary or suspicious situation. It comes to my mind the old episodes of Scooby Doo, always ending with the monster or ghost being unmasked, turning to be only an unscrupulous person with a selfish interest in scaring the rest in order to get some particular benefit. It always worked with Scooby and Shaggy, but smart Velma, with Daphne and Fred will find an absolutely show more "from-this-world" answer.
In GHOSTLY THIEF OF TIME the character will do all the contrary! Stuart, Brian and Violet (with the help of Ferdinand, an "alien robot" dog) will find a supernatural explanation to an absolutely normal, ordinary, daily situation.

Something is obviously happening with the time in Stuart's sixth grade room. It's evident time goes slower the near of the end of the day it is, and the closer to the back of the room you sit. Why does the last half an hour of the school day seems to last two hours? (Who hasn't wondered about this at least a thousand times?) The EMU Club has a new mystery to solve. Is the school janitor really what he claims to be? Could be the janitor's closet a time portal? You'll need to read this engaging story to find out!

This book was a great shared read with my son. It's very funny. We laughed or grinned at almost every page. It's visually attractive, written in an "EMU Club Report" format, with colorful pictures (at least in the edition I read). The characters are likable, and they have a beautiful relation between them. The time travel elements are easy to follow by the kids, not confusing at all.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Check out more children's book reviews in my Reviews in Chalk Blog! show less

There's a lot to like in this collection. It takes place over 9/11 and seeing the changes in the strip that happen after that tragedy is fascinating. There are some misses, but its overwhelmingly hits, and the varied strips he produces keeps the book from getting stale.

(ARC was provided to read and review.)

The book is the first adventure of the EMU-Club and it's told by 11 year old Stuart Tennemeier, who is the President of the club.
EMU stands for Exploration-Mystery-Unbelievable and the name was created by the three human members, Stuart, his younger sister Violet and his best friend Brian (Stuart's dog Ferdinand is completing the group as fourth member).
The EMU-Club was founded on a Saturday when they didn't know what to do and felt terribly bored and show more Stuart came up with the idea, to look for big mysteries and to try and solve them.

The story is written as if you're reading the groups official report of their first mission, narrated by Stuart and wonderfully enhanced by illustrations, which are presented as photos taken by Violet during their adventure.

The four very quickly realise, that they don't come across any big mysteries to solve and decide to concentrate on something smaller, like Stuart's missing game controller.
But the small mystery leads to something much bigger and soon they are facing an alien invasion and the aliens are quite an interesting species indeed. And how they try to fight them is complete fun and actually quite logical.
Will the quartet save the planet?

The idea of the story isn't new, but the way in which Ruben Bolling mixes the ingredients, (brainy best friend, unnerving sister, loyal pet, aliens and robots), it's just refreshing to read and a lot of fun. What I particularly liked about it, is that it encourages children to look for the small mysteries in their surrounds, the everyday adventures, as they might turn out as much fun as the big superhero stuff, maybe even more.

The book is a quick read, with short chapters and a font in handwriting-style and it will easily appeal to children who start to read their first smaller books and it's a brilliant one to encourage reluctant readers to give it a try.

If the EMU-Club continues like this, it has the potential to be a hit.
Or to say it like Stuart: it's spelunkingly good. show less

These are fun, but it was mostly worth it to see some of the older comics from the 90's and 00's, before politics completely became the focus of the strip (and I like his political strips, but it was a breath of fresh air to see some before that time).