Ricky Ricotta #2: The Mutant Mosquitoes from Mercury product reviews

Out of all the books that we've been given to review, my son chose to read this one first. He loves Ricky Ricotta and his Mighty Robot and they were one of the first series of books that we got out of the library to encourage him to read independently.

In this book, Ricky and his Mighty Robot need to save the world from Mr Mosquito and his mutant Mosquitos from Mercury, but not until Ricky finishes his maths test of course!

My son loves a good battle and this book doesn't disappoint. It's fast paced and action packed with a little humour thrown in as well. It's a short book made up of short, easy to read chapters with a few paragraphs at most on each page. The original Ricky Ricotta was all in black and white but the new colour edition really brings the story to life. I love the glossy pages and additional comic strip sections as well as the expected flip-o-rama which is present in all the books. The colour illustrations definitely make it more attractive to young readers and it would make a great first chapter book.

It's reasonably priced and perfect for a bit of light reading for both boys and girls. I'm sure we'll be reading it again very soon.

I was excited to see a Ricky Ricotta book in the offerings for September. Last year we found a copy of one in the series at the local library and we loved it. It's a series written by Dav Pilkey (who does Captain Underpants) and it has some of the same elements of his stories (Flip-o-matic pages, and humourous destruction), but with a more simplified story. I would say this book is more for kids new to reading or more reluctant readers.

We sat down and read this tonight in one sitting. I found the book went by quite quickly. Each page has no more than a small paragraph written on it. The story is straight forward and easy to follow. There are some bigger words in the mix, so it would be a challenge, but a good one. The subject matter is interesting and engaging. There are robots and mutants and intergalactic battles.

Our favourite scene in the book was when Ricky was doing his maths test. It was a bit naughty, but funny all the same. My daughter had a giggle at the fractions work that the Robot does. Plus she tried some of the maths problems too, which I thought was a win.

This book is illustrated in full colour including the flip-o-matic pages. The art is really neat. It felt a bit like I was reading a comic book, thought there weren't panels or tile layouts as such. It just felt action packed. The only thing I felt was that the illustration lines weren't as sharp and crisp as they could have been. This gave them a muted feeling and the colours didn't pop the way I would have liked.

Other than that small downside, this was a very reasonably priced book, perfect for school holiday reading practice for any girl or boy into robots and action. I can see us reading this one again, as it was relatively quick to read but gave us a good block of quality time together.