Li'l Rip Haywire Adventures: Escape from Camp Cooties

by Dan Thompson

Overview

A rollicking new adventure story from the creator of Rip Haywire!

Rip Haywire thinks he's got it made. Instead of going to bed early, doing fractions and eating Brussels sprouts, he gets to accompany his soldier-of fortune dad on laughably dangerous international missions. He's the only 12-year-old in the world with a working knowledge of the Seven Most Common Booby Traps Used by Ancient Civilizations to Protect Their Precious Treasures. It sure beats school, right?

But Rip's life is about to change when his dad, in a sudden fit of responsibility, assigns Rip his toughest mission yet: a historically all-girls summer camp. Will Rip learn how to get along with his feminine camp mates, most of whom have never even seen a flame thrower, let alone used one to fend off a pack of rabid hyenas? Can Rip solve the mysteries that surround the camp and one intriguing girl in particular? Readers will follow Rip's misadventures in his whimsically illustrated journal, helping him to solve puzzles and beat the bad guys, as he learns that friendship can be more valuable than ancient treasure, and more powerful than a well-placed land mine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449470517
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	7 - 12 Years

About the Author

Thompson began his professional career doing character design and animation for FunnyBone Interactive, part of Vivendi Universal, then moved into freelance cartoon illustration and gag cartooning. A member of the National Cartoonists Society, he writes and draws cartoons for magazines, greeting cards, comic books and Web sites. Thompson also draws for the Brevity comic panel. A New England native, Thompson was born and raised in Lowell, Mass. He now lives in Graham, N.C., with his wife and two sons.

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2016
Gr 2–5—A hybrid graphic novel starring a young adventurer. Meet Li'l Rip Haywire, a self-proclaimed "solider of fortune." Li'l Rip has big shoes to fill as his father, Rip Haywire, another solider of fortune, is a world-class adventurer. Li'l Rip gets to accompany his father on his international missions—that is, until his father sends Li'l Rip away to camp, and not just any camp, Pink Powderpuff Summer Camp for Girls. What else is an adventurer and solider of fortune left to do except plot his escape? Surely he wouldn't stay and get to know the girls, would he? Thompson mixes comic panels throughout the regular prose. This format makes the work perfect for reluctant readers or elementary-aged kids looking to branch into different genres. Mazes and puzzles appear throughout the book for readers to complete—possibly limiting its longtime library circulation life. Thompson's black-and-white illustrations harken back to the art found in comics from the 1930s and 1940s. VERDICT An additional purchase for those looking for chapter book-graphic novel hybrids.—Kevin McGuire, Woodland Hills School District, PA

School Library Journal

2015-12-08
This soldier of fortune's worst nightmare: Pink PowderPuff Summer Camp for Girls! Ten-year-old Rip Haywire and his talking dog, TNT (whose temperament doesn't match his name), usually accompany Rip's adventurer dad on dangerous missions. They recover jewels from jungle temples, save Arabian towns from sorcerous chewing-gum manufacturers, rescue climbers from a yeti, and even battle alien robots in space. But Dad wants Rip to have friends his own age, so he sends Rip and TNT to camp (and has his buddies fortify security to make the camp escape-proof). Rip's trapped for the summer with (ugh) girls. Then he meets Breezy, who promises intel about a secret way out if Rip will help her find gold at an "Indian pyramid" and give the credit to her grandfather, a frustrated adventurer. The mission and the summer don't go as expected, but Rip does make friends. Thompson's tongue-in-cheek parody of he-man, boys' adventures is chock-full of black-and-white comic-style panels and dotted with mazes and rebus puzzles (answers at the back). Rip's over-the-top past exploits (biting sharks, fleeing mummies, psychoanalyzing an anaconda) are goofy fun, but though the story is clearly satiric, it does nothing to question stale adventure-story tropes, and there is no apparent attempt at ethnic diversity among the campers. Saturday-morning-cartoon high jinks—and that's about it. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 7-12)

Kirkus Reviews