Slamdown Town: Ragtag Team is the second book in the series by Maxwell Nicoll and Matthew Smith. The first book, Slamdown Town was a slice of Tom Hank’s Big, The Main Event on Netflix, as well as a fantasy that most kids have. What if something you did magically gave you powers? In the case of Ollie, a young teenage boy, it’s a piece of gum that transforms him into a massive, hulk of a man who can wrestle like Kurt Angle. Whenever he chews it he’s Big Chew, an adult who throws elbows in the ring and when he doesn’t he’s just Hollis’ little brother, in addition to being a best friend to Tamiko.
Slamdown Town: Ragtag Team starts with Big Chew still in retirement. While the wrestling crowd, its fans (including Hollis-who was his biggest one), and the wrestling arena miss him, he’s happy being a normal kid all of the time again. Tamiko is diligently practicing an old-school video game. She’s able to get to the final match but is never able to defeat the heel in the end. Nobody has ever been able to win the entire video game. One day she finally gets through the final match, beats the baddie and is infused with magical powers to where she’s as big, strong, and capable a wrestler as Big Chew.
She’s ecstatic about this because she’s always been jealous of Ollie’s ability to become a superstar wrestler. While they’re great friends, she’s had a deeper, truer appreciation of the square circle than him. Thankfully for her, strange things are afoot in Slamdown Town in the fact that a pair of children are making mincemeat of some of the biggest specimens who dare crawl between the second and third rope.
These are real children, yet they’re beating some of the best wrestlers in the arena, and not in very physical ways at all. Ollie and Tamiko can see it from a mile away. There are costumes that are all too fake, punches that aren’t close to connecting, and other technicalities that keep allowing the Krackle Kiddos to keep on winning.
The Krackle Kiddos are actually the children of the arena’s owner, Linton Krackle. This leads Big Chew and Game Over, Tamiko’s alter ego, back into the ring to show the Krackle kids how kids, who are really kids given magical powers to wrestle as adults, can really wrestle.
But, is it a case of kids who also have their own magical powers, an overprotective father who’s aware that his kids are in over their head, a lame wrestling gimmick or something else? At its core, Ragtag Team is a story about friendship, with a healthy side order of mystery and wrestling. Our two legitimate kid-wrestlers have a couple of interactions in the ring as they climb the ladder to a grand finale with the Krackle Kiddos.
Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Ollie and Tamiko have the ability to wear a costume. The Krackle Kiddos are children in and out of the ring. The four end up becoming friends because they’re the same age and, aside from their heel or face personalities, have the same things in common. Operating undercover has its risks though, from believing your own hype to feeling like a traitor or possibly betraying new or old friends.
For me, an older reader, Ragtag Team was not as enjoyable as the first one in the series Slamdown Town. I casually mentioned this fact to our 11-year-old and was quickly rebuked. “What? That book (Ragtag Team) was funnier and really good”, he said. He then gave me a surly look, left the room, and has now questioned my ability to accurately understand what upper-elementary and middle school readers will enjoy.
OK, I made up that last sentence, but it’s what most tweens are probably thinking when they give you that look. The point is, whereas I (the adult-age reader) might not have enjoyed Ragtag Team as much, the core audience, those readers who are 10 through 17, will probably enjoy it more. Up is down, down is up, welcome to the world of parenting a tween. For those ages, Ragtag Team, the second book in the Slamdown Town series is comfort food reading that they’ll want to curl up to and spend some time with.
Slamdown Town: Ragtag Team is by Maxwell Nicoll and Matthew Smith and available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.
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