Herbert's Wormhole: The Rise and Fall of El Solo Libre

by Peter Nelson, Rohitash Rao (Illustrator)

Overview

For fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate comes the sequel to Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao's Herbert's Wormhole, the breakout novel-in-cartoons that J. K. Rowling called "absolutely wonderful—fast-paced, inventive, engaging, and hilarious."

Herbert, Alex, and Sammi are heroes in the year 2109, having successfully saved the planet from an alien invasion (or so everyone thinks). Everything is going just swimmingly until, inevitably, real aliens appear—the evil, destruction-obsessed Klapthorians. The crew is going to come clean, but then they meet a crazy old man—who turns out to be Alex, age 109—with a plan for saving the world all over again. Can they do it and still make it back home by curfew?

The sequel to Herbert's Wormhole is chock-full of the same humor, imagination, and irresistible artwork as the first title. There are hijinks aplenty, not to mention skateboard stunts, time travel, and a whole lot of fake moustache shenanigans. Fans, old and new alike, will not be disappointed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062012197
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Series:	Herbert's Wormhole , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Peter Nelson is a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, Diane, and their two sons, Charlie and Christopher. Herbert's Wormhole was Peter's First children's book. He wrote it without ever having met an actual alien or traveling through time, which made it a bit more challenging, but just as fun.

Rohitash Rao was born in an exotic, faraway land called Hyderabad, India. He then grew up in another exotic, faraway land called Rancho Cucamonga, California. He now lives in a magical city on an island called Manhattan, where he works as an animator and director. Herbert's Wormhole was Rao's First children's book, much of which he illustrated while sitting on a broken stool in his apartment.

Editorial Reviews

The plot is humorous and the characters are fairly well developed. The black-and-white drawings are amusing and add to the story. Fans of the first book and readers who enjoy science fiction, adventure, aliens, and humor will like this one.” — School Library Journal

From the Publisher

The three squabbling young time travelers introduced in Herbert's Wormhole (2009) again save their future hometown from alien invaders. Real ones, this time. A selective memory wipe has convinced Alex that the video-game monsters he and his buddies Herbert and Sammi had "killed" in the previous episode were real, and he's bored by the subsequent lack of AlienSlayer action. Accordingly, he rashly makes a jeering interstellar phone call to the hostile Klapthorians to schedule an annihilation of Earth. Suffused with satiric line drawings as well as direct and indirect homages to Captain Underpants, the ensuing antics zigzag happily. They take readers from this time to the next century, from Merwinsville to the Moon on the way to a suitably titanic battle with not one but TWO giant Klapthorian Death Slugs. (OK, one's a parade balloon, but still.) Ultimately Alex comes to realize that even with a Mexican wrestling mask and a new moniker (see title) he's not going to get by without a little help from his friends. A fine supporting cast consisting largely of squidlike, Aussie-accented "G'Daliens" and a supercomputer aptly dubbed the SarcasmaTron provide additional yuks. More lightweight farce, with a good chance of further sequels. (Science fiction. 7-11)

Kirkus Reviews