Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Take A Hike!, is the start of something wonderful

This is the start of a beautiful friendship. When you read Schnozzer & Tatertoes:  Take A Hike! you might be reminded of when you first dug into Dog Man or InvestiGators. When you read both of the first books in those series, especially the latter one, you immediately wanted more once the last page turned over and the book was finished. Schnozzer & Tatertoes:  Take A Hike! leaves you with that same desire. Take A Hike! operates in that early graphic novel space that lower to upper-elementary school kids crave. It’s relentlessly silly, has chapters to provide confidence to those young ages, full-color illustrations, and effortlessly entertains readers whose minds can easily be distracted.

Getting kids who are six to nine years old to learn to love read is a joy that pays dividends. That sounds silly, but it’s important. The mere act of getting kids to realize that reading is fun, and not a side hustle that educators use to torture students, is vital to their academic ease and success. However, there are some elements in a young person’s life that dissuade them from reading. It’s not cool. Video games are more fun. That ignorant attention-seeking class clown and those friends who parrot those actions or phrases do those ages no favor.

Take A Hike! is one of those early graphic novels that smacks down those elements with a vintage-era Rock Bottom or Stone Cold Stunner. Bam goes the ‘reading isn’t cool’ platitude from those who don’t want you to achieve. Wham goes the excuse that ‘reading isn’t as much fun’ as the knucklehead in the corner who’s receiving the wrong kind of attention from the teacher.  Instead, this is a joyous, uproarious, early-reader graphic novel that has a laugh count that’s as high as the first InvestiGators graphic novel.

To illustrate this point, I just asked my wife to randomly turn to any page in Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Take A Hike! and see if there was anything on those two pages that made her laugh or smile. For the record, it’s not that my wife is a curmudgeon; it’s just that she hadn’t read the graphic novel and it’s not a medium that she seeks out. Sure enough, she found two instances that made her smile, so I consider that a success.

Schnozzer and Tatertoes are two dogs. Tatertoes is sillier than Schnozzer, but they’re the best of friends and live more like humans than canines. On a rainy day, the two are looking for activities, which leads to a game of “Mother May I” and Tatertoes reveals that he doesn’t know who is mom is. They check his folder of important papers to find out that he wasn’t born too far away from where they live, which leads to a road trip.

The two discover a tree chicken, nose spiders, breadcrumbs and stumble into a couple of fairy tales. Think of Dumb & Dumber, except the two of them are much too polite to use words that are mean. Theirs is a relationship of friendship, with a little frustration, and a lot of fun.  It’s the full-color, laugh-aplenty, early reader graphic novel, that kids want to read, doing the thing that parents and educators want them to do.

It also works in the tradition of children’s entertainment that operates on two levels of enjoyment. There are alliterations, puns and quips that adults will understand and laugh at, but they’re also appropriate for younger readers. Those elementary school ages will re-read it numerous times, pass it around to their friends, and have water cooler talk about which gag is their favorite. Some will say they’re more like Tatertoes, others will laugh at the pun, fairy tale references or other goofy things. Anyway that you look at it, it’s win-win. The kids will enjoy reading it, they just might learn to love reading, but they’ll certainly look forward to the next book in this series.

Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Take A Hike! is by Rick Stromoski and is available on Union Square Kids a subsidiary of Sterling Publishing Co.

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