Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Shoot the Moon!, is a new elementary tentpole

When does a book beget a series? Sometimes a book series is forced upon readers. It’s part of a bigger story to tell with the promise of multiple books to leisurely tell the tale that didn’t mandate so many books in the end. And other times it’s a genuine story, the evolution of characters who readers want to spend time with. The latter is important and one of those things that have the ‘it’ factor for elementary-aged readers. Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Shoot the Moon! is the second book in this graphic novel/comic book series and it has the ‘it’ factor.

That factor is something you can’t plan on or go about creating intentionally with that characteristic. It’s the shareability of the book that makes young readers say that they read it. It helps if the book is capable of crossing over multiple demographics. The Muppets was very effective at doing that because it had jokes that operated on different levels for kids and adults. For books, the characters have to be such that if they were to come alive off of the page, audiences would want to spend time with them for the same reasons that they read about them.

If the magic of fictional character 3D implementation were to happen, then elementary school-age audiences would not mind spending time with Schnozzer & Tatertoes. Tatertoes and Schnozzer are anthropomorphic dogs. Schnozzer is a level-headed, intelligent schnauzer who keeps his flighty friend in check. Tatertoes is a mutt who’s often hungry, a little spacey, and gets most of the laughs in the book series.

They’re pun-laden laughs that are aimed at elementary and middle school. Those older readers will be able to burn through the book with grins aplenty, while those younger readers will read it like a comic book, pointing to the art and marveling at the absurd silliness.

In the first Schnozzer & Tatertoes book I compared it to The Investigators, and I still stand by that comparison to an extent. Both graphic novel series are consistent, have a very high laugh-to-page ratio, and will entertain those ages. With Shoot the Moon! the book has spawned a series and laid down habits and expectations for the characters. In doing so the delineation between these two heavies has been established and you can hear the chorus of indiscriminate high-pitched screams from younger elementary school students.

Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Shoot the Moon! is a comic book series that hammers into the elementary school ages with joy and focus. Those middle school readers will enjoy the book, but they’re not the primary target. Much in the way that the Dog Man or Captain Underpants series has multiple areas in its Venn Diagram, but also has areas that each demographic will call their own. Dog Man skews younger and then Cat Kid Comic Club goes even younger and more basic than that.

Shoot the Moon! is an entry into the Schnozzer & Tatertoes book series that is easier to read than Dog Man and as funny, but not as lobotomized as Cat Kid. Schnozzer has elements of the higher-end humor that make The Investigators so funny, but is on a visually simpler level so it won’t intimidate those elementary school readers.

In Shoot the Moon! our two characters are bored at home when one of them suggests going to the Air and Space Museum to get ideas for the cartoon that they’re going to create. Once at the museum, Tatertoes is goofing around and accidentally locks himself in an exhibit. Schnozzer attempts to help him extricate himself from the danger and the action/comedy ensues.

This is silly fun and no reader will confuse this comic book as a substitute for actually visiting the Air and Space Museum. One thing that’s special about the Schnozzer & Tatertoes series is that it has the soul of a comic strip, yet it has a chapter narrative in a package that’s often associated with graphic novels. The illustrations are big, soft, and playful, like a comic strip that’s afforded more space and time to tell its story. However, in today’s almost newspaper-less culture, the comic strip is a quant term that youth can’t identify with. Now get off of my lawn.

Whatever you want to call it, Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Shoot the Moon! establishes the duo as a friendship pairing that your elementary ages should know. The humor, wit, and heart that the book has will provide the independent reading encouragement those ages don’t know that they need. It’s the book series that will be shared from kid to kid and whose space in the library will be marked more by the dust that occupies its vacant space, than the book’s actual presence.

Schnozzer & Tatertoes: Shoot the Moon! is by Rick Stromoski and is available on Union Square Kids.

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