Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Sloppy joe button,
spatu-copter, spork phone, rubber glove suction cups, canolli-oculars, chicken
nugget bombs…look out! Here comes Lunch
Lady! Let’s shine the spotlight on this book
of fantasy:
Summary
Hector, Dee and Terrence
are curious about Lunch Lady’s life outside of school. Little do they know she is a secret agent,
solving crimes and taking care of bad guys!
She has help from Betty, her co-worker, who creates interesting gadget’s
for Lunch Lady to use like a spatu-copter: part spatula, part helicopter. Or rubber glove suction cups: good for
hiding on the ceiling during covert operations.
Lunch Lady and Betty think
Mr. O’Connell’s substitute, Mr. Pasteur, is up to something. They make a plan to distract Mr. Pasteur and
check out his classroom. Lunch Lady
finds a computer disk with blueprints for robots. After school, Lunch Lady follows Mr.
Pasteur…and the students decide to follow Lunch Lady. They end up at a warehouse where Lunch Lady
finds out Mr. Pasteur is not human. He’s
a robot working with Mr. Edison to help him beat out Mr. O’Connell and win the Teacher
of the Year award. Mr. Edison has
created a team of robots to help him with his plan. The students come into the warehouse and Mr.
Edison sends the robots to capture them and Lunch Lady.
Can Lunch Lady save herself and the
students? Can Mr. Edison and the robots
be stopped? Find out in the first book
of the Lunch Lady series!
Discussion
Krosoczka’s book is an
engaging graphic novel. He connects
fantasy and fiction in his book, with his interpretations in a graphic
format. This format is highly visual
with an easy to follow structure. He
uses square and rectangular boxes to detail the events in the book. His illustrations are full of detail to
depict action sequences and include talking bubbles and labels. The conversations within the talking bubbles
move the story along. He uses labels in
small print for various sounds and gadget identification, as well as large
print with capital letters for loud sounds.
The talking bubbles and labels are equally important in helping the
reader understand the events in the story.
Lunch Lady is a dynamic
character readers will be cheering for. Readers
will appreciate seeing an ordinary woman doing extraordinary things. She fits the role as a typical lunch lady,
with her friendly conversations with students and teachers. But, she also has her secret agent side,
collaborating with Betty, looking for clues and planning her strategy. The students, Hector, Dee and Terrance, are
believable characters. The book takes
place in the realistic setting of a school.
Readers will relate to the students’ curiosity about what the staff
members do outside of school. They will
relate to their interactions with each other, with teachers and with other
students, like the school bully, Milmoe.
Readers will be intrigued
by the elements of fantasy included in the book, like the secret passage in the
school kitchen and the gadgets Betty and Lunch Lady use throughout the
book. Readers will appreciate the humor
included in the book, like Lunch Lady’s reference to a “knuckle sandwich” and
the expressions she uses when she is in trouble like “Oh, doughnuts” and
“Cauliflower!” Themes consistent with
the genre of fantasy are also included.
Lunch Lady works to overcome obstacles and completes the task of saving
the day.
Overall, the strength of
this book is its consistency. Readers
will enjoy all of the elements of fantasy it includes like Lunch Lady’s secret
agent actions and gadgets. This is the
first book in Krosoczka’s low fantasy series.
Readers will be hooked after book one.
The ending will leave readers hanging and give them a feed forward into
the second book.
Awards/Reviews
Here are samples of a
few reviews:
“This tongue-in-cheek superheroine
graphic novel will hit the spot for chapter-book readers. Lunch Lady and Betty, her assistant in both
the cafeteria and her role of wrong-righting supersleuth, investigate the strange
case of an absent teacher, his creepy substitute, and a plan to grab the
Teacher of the Year Award by truly foul means. Three little kids join in the action as Lunch
Lady, equipped with a variety of high-tech kitchen gadgets like a spatu-copter
and a lunch-tray laptop, tracks a cleverly disguised robot to his maker’s lab,
where a whole army of cyborgs require kicking, stomping, and the wielding of
fish-stick nunchucks. Yellow-highlighted pen-and-ink cartoons are as energetic
and smile-provoking as Lunch Lady’s epithets of “Cauliflower!” and Betty’s
ultimate weapon, the hairnet. There is a nice twist in the surprise ending, and
the kids’ ability to stand up to the school bully shows off their newfound
confidence in a credible manner. Little
details invite and reward repeat readings with visual as well as verbal
punning. –
Booklist
“Punk Farm creator
Krosoczka breaks out of picture books with this agreeably silly graphic novel
for young readers. Classmates Hector,
Dee and Terrence have always wondered about the Lunch Lady: What does she do
when she’s not making chicken-patty pizza? Tending to her many cats? Taking care of her family? After some amateur sleuthing, the kids
discover that their Lunch Lady is out fighting the forces of evil, of course,
with her trusty sidekick, Betty. This
dynamic duo uncovers a nefarious plot hatched by a villainous teacher to
overrun the school with cyborg substitutes. Backed up by Betty’s ingenious arsenal of
amalgamated cafeteria utensils including Spatu-copter, Chicken Nugget Bombs and
Lunch Tray Laptop, the two are on the case. This graphic novel alternates between boxy,
regular panels and full-page spreads, keeping readers’ visual interest piqued. Filled with goofy puns and grayscale art with
cheery yellow accents, this is a delightfully fun escapist read. Be sure to recommend this to fans of Captain
Underpants.” – Kirkus Reviews
“In this campy graphic
novel series debut, Krosoczka (Punk Farm) introduces Lunch Lady, a scrappy,
permed crime fighter with rolled-up sleeves, yellow dishwashing gloves and an
apron. Down in the school's boiler room,
she and her older sidekick, Betty, test gadgets (like a handheld
spatula-helicopter and a banana boomerang) and keep an eye on things. Three children—Hector, Dee and
Terrence—speculate about Lunch Lady's after-school life and follow her when she
jumps on her moped, in hot pursuit of a suspicious substitute teacher.
Krosoczka's plot is somewhat thin: the title and cover illustration announce
the trouble with the sub; the only mysteries are the mastermind and motive
behind the sub's deployment. Yet
Krosoczka crafts Lunch Lady as a tough, capable heroine who deploys such
exclamations as ‘Nutritious!’ and bon mots like ‘Should I serve up some
whaaamburgers and cries?’ when on a robot-destroying tear. With plenty of silliness and slapstick in the
text and panel art alike, this comic should alleviate lunch-line boredom with
visions of servers wielding fishstick-nunchucks and growling, ‘Today's special
is a knuckle sandwich.’” – Publishers
Weekly
Teacher’s Tools
Students could engage in a
genre study with graphic novels in Literature Circles. Books like the Babymouse series or the Diary
of a Wimpy Kid series could also be included.
Students could engage in an author study by reading other books in the Lunch Lady series by Krosoczka. Students could compare and contrast the elements of the series which stay the same and elements that change as they read other books. Students could record ideas on a Double Bubble map.
Students could create
other gadgets for Lunch Lady. Materials
from the lunchroom could be used as props for students. Students could also diagram and label their
new gadgets, then write about how the gadget could be used by Lunch Lady to
solve crimes or save the day.
Students can use this book
as a mentor text to write what might happen next (at the end of the book) in
graphic novel form.
Krosoczka, Jarrett J. 2009. Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute. New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers. ISBN 978-0-375-84683-0.
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