Iguana Boy saves the world with a triple cheese pizza by James Bishop and Rikin Paresh
Hachette, 2018. ISBN 9781444939347
(Age: 8-12) Themes: Superheroes, Brothers and sisters, Bullying.
James Bishop's preteen novel introduces a new group of superheroes,
an evil super villain, militant platypuses and a young boy who longs
for his own super skills. What happens when an older brother and
sister use their superpowers to bully their younger brother? This is
the situation that Dylan Spencer finds himself in at the beginning
of "Iguana Boy". His older brother Sam, (aka Arctic Thunder) can
control the weather and uses it for his own gain and on Mondays, his
older sister Millie (aka Millie Monday) can defeat any enemy with
her very powerful laser eyes. Both are members of the 'Super Hero
Collective', an organisation for superheroes that Dylan longs to
join. Then just after his ninth birthday, Dylan finds that he can
communicate with iguanas - just iguanas.
After Dylan and Paul (his brother's abandoned pet iguana) get to
know each other, they undertake a mission to rescue Paul's friends
from the pet shop. With this team of four Dylan has decided that his
team of iguanas could be possibly be useful when saving the world.
When his brother and sister, along with others members of the Super
Hero Collective start to go missing, Dylan rightly perceives that
something sinister is about to happen. Supervillain Celina
Shufflebottom, aka Platypus Kid, makes an appearance and it becomes
apparent that Iguana Boy and his team of iguanas must come up with a
plan to save the world.
Bishop's narrative is filled with quirky conversations, unusual
characters with some gross superpowers and talking animals with
attitude. Rikin Parekh's fun and quirky illustrations add to the
drama and comedy of Dylan's adventures. "Iguana Boy saves the world
with a triple cheese pizza" is just right for primary school readers
who enjoy humorous novels.
Rhyllis Bignell