The Bad Guys, The Big Bad Wolf will have elementary readers jumping

Our 9 year old is a hanger on to The Bad Guys and we are 100% OK with that. He’s going into fourth grade and has been reading The Bad Guys since the end of first grade. In real world time I know that‘s not a long time, but through the eyes of a kid’s library it can be an eternity. Two years ago he wouldn’t have dreamed of reading the stuff that he’s reading now. These books have no pictures, chapters that are more than a dozen pages long and might even mention the subject of boys and girls ‘liking’ each other.

The ninth book in The Bad Guys series of books from Scholastic is called The Bad Guys in The Big Bad Wolf. Each book in this series has our title characters in such elementary school adventures as in…The Furball Strikes Back, in Attack of the Zittens, in Do-You-Think-He-Saurus and other books that your kids aged five and older have already read. When you visit an elementary school library ask where their copies of any books featuring The Bad Guys are. You’ll see a handful of beaten up, dog-eared books with yellowed pages that most likely have some degree of little hand prints all of them. These books have been loved, read, re-read and had their spine tapped several times in order to extend their life span.

Our 9 year-old has been counting the days until The Big Bad Wolf was released. We got to the store and saw a couple of older books by Aaron Blabey on the shelf, but no sight of the new one. At first he was dejected and looked like he might cry. He was certain, absolutely positive that it was hitting stores on this day. I suggested that he ask a person at the store where the book is. This is an important leap of faith for him because he’s not one to ask questions to people that he doesn’t know.

 However, as we were buying some other stuff I suggest that he go to Guest Services and ask them. No sooner had I looked up then I saw his every growing flip-flop covered feet blazing a train to see where the book was. Guest Services directed us to the area where the book should’ve been, but it wasn’t. Again I suggested that he go ask someone in a red vest about the book. They checked their computer; saw that it was in the back, still in the box, but that they’d go get a copy for us.

I kid you not, our nine year-old was skipping up and down the isle with nervous energy. After a couple of minutes he grew tired of this and started to peek around the corner like he was scouting out a drive-by for a teenage girl in 10 years. “He’s got it. He’s got it!” I heard. 

For adults who need to know what the plot’s about, Mr. Wolf gets blown up to a massive sized monster and The Bad Guys need to find a way to stop him ASAP. Toss in some new friends, lots of humor, a few potty jokes, some more humor, several dashes of action and you’ll see why elementary readers will absolutely love this series. They don’t need to know the series before reading The Big Bad Wolf. Most elementary school kids will know the characters, their role in the story and are already eager to be the first ones to tell the other kids that they’ve read the new book. A bonus for parents is that The Bad Guys, Big Bad Wolf only retails for $5.99, even less if you shop around.