Any Fin Is Possible-the Zombie Goldfish adventures continue

To understand My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish: Any Fin Is Possible it’s best if you have an idea of the title character. Frankie is a goldfish who was being experimented on by Mark, a typical teen. Mark’s brother, Tom saved Frankie with a battery, but that also turned him into a zombie goldfish with the power to hypnotize anyone. Now that you know the basics, Any Fin Is Possible is an upper elementary/middle school book that serves as a great chapter book when young readers are going from Captain Underpants to Wimpy Kid and up.

 

Pradeep is Tom’s friend and they’re often in trouble, thwarting an evil plan from Mark or doing things that kids normally do. Albeit with a bowl containing a well meaning zombie goldfish whose enemy, Fang, the evil vampire kitten might be nearby.

In Any Fin Is Possible young readers have two stories to enjoy, each of them about 100 pages long. The Curse of the Cat of Kings finds Pradeep and Tom spending the night in a museum where they encounter booby traps, curses, mummy kittens and their brother’s manipulating the entire situation.

Sports-Day Showdown has the athletic teams, combining with the intellectual and craft people for a day of fun. On the bus, Pradeep is sick, Tom is ambivalent about the day, hasn’t embraced the athletic competition, but is OK with it since his brother isn’t on the bus and Frankie is safe in his friend’s barf bag. Sure enough, Tom is around the corner, rigging the entire day to where he can win every event, until everyone gets zombified, a vampire kitten rears its head and Sami, Pradeep’s sister helps to save the day.

Parents will like the Zombie Goldfish books because they do a remarkable job of telling a potentially complex story with very few illustrations. If getting our children to read is the goal, then chapter books are the path that helps them accomplish that.  For example, our 6 year old loves the silliness of Captain Underpants, can read most of the words, but still likes to have us read to him. We’ve read a couple Zombie Goldfish books to him and he likes them, but needs a little help with the words.

The text is challenging, but not too far out of his league.  And because the book doesn’t have the illustrations for him to use as a crutch he’s going outside of his comfort reading zone to follow along with Fang, Frankie and any others who happen to get hypnotized or picked on by their older brother.  In addition to the silly aspects it has real world things like brothers, school events and the other things that they might find pointless, but are all part of growing up.

The vocabulary in Any Fin Is Possible in on par with Captain Underpants, but has fewer illustrations. The chapters in Goldfish are five to seven pages long with an illustration or two in each of them. The vocabulary in the books are similar to Wimpy Kid, but those books have longer chapters. Because of that it’s a great stepping stone to longer chapter books, or a great and fun escape for those middle school students who are just looking for a laugh.