Iggy Loomis, Superkid in Training

by Jennifer Allison, Michael Moran (Illustrator)

Overview

A hilarious new illustrated science fiction series for elementary school readers!

For fans of Captain Underpants, here comes Iggy Loomis -- already a huge pain in his older brother Daniel’s you-know-what. But when a science experiment gone wrong makes Iggy’s DNA mutate, Iggy gets cool super powers! Is Iggy going to turn into an alien? Daniel needs to stop Iggy right now—before EVERYONE gets in trouble! With aliens, gadgets, space travel, superpowers, spies, and Jennifer Allison’s humor, this story is an out-of-this-world blast!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101593837
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	09/12/2013
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	7 - 9 Years

About the Author

Jennifer Allison  has worked as a news reporter and a high school English teacher, and she has also held numerous odd jobs—piano player in a shopping mall, assembly-line worker for General Motors, waitress, preschool teacher—that have helped her generate ideas for characters and stories.  She lives in Chicago with her husband and their three children.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for the Iggy Loomis series:
 
“Piles on the yuks…. It doesn't take psychic powers to see how this could be a crowd pleaser.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Allison creates a comically put-upon older brother in Daniel in a lighthearted story that captures the chaos of everyday family life, superpowers or not.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
Praise and Accolaides for Jennifer Allison's Gilda Joyce series:
 

• "Allison's debut novel introduces a spunky, appealingly eccentric 13-year-old who identifies with Harriet the Spy and may well rival her for readers' affections." – Publishers Weekly, starred review
 

• "Will make readers giggle out loud." – School Library Journal, starred review
 

• "[Allison] not only offers a credible mystery...but also, by allowing readers inside the heads of both girls, provides particularly strong characterizations–much more substantial than the ubiquitous first-person narrative would have offered." – Booklist, starred review
 
Edgar Award Nominee, Best Juvenile Book
VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers
Sunshine State Young Readers Award Program
A Booklist Top Ten Mysteries of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

Editorial Reviews

A frazzled boy named Daniel and his wildly energetic younger brother, Iggy, get mixed up in intergalactic shenanigans in this series opener from Allison (the Gilda Joyce, Private Investigator books). It all starts when Daniel befriends Alistair, the odd new kid next door, who has an extensive insect collection and whose spacecraft models actually fly. After Iggy eats bugs from Alistair’s collection, the tyke wakes up with insect-based superpowers, and Alistair reveals that he and his family are actually aliens studying the best ways to grow broccoli, a vital crop on their planet. A quick trip to Alistair’s spaceship confirms that Iggy’s powers can be subdued with a pacifier “made with the most advanced Blaronite technology,” but they may manifest in moments of stress. And so they do when neighborhood kid Chauncey makes trouble. Allison creates a comically put-upon older brother in Daniel in a lighthearted story that captures the chaos of everyday family life, superpowers or not. Moran’s spot illustrations and comics sequences (not seen in final form) appear throughout. Ages 7–9. Author’s agent: Douglas Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for the Iggy Loomis series:
 
“Piles on the yuks…. It doesn't take psychic powers to see how this could be a crowd pleaser.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Allison creates a comically put-upon older brother in Daniel in a lighthearted story that captures the chaos of everyday family life, superpowers or not.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
Praise and Accolaides for Jennifer Allison's Gilda Joyce series:
 
* "Allison's debut novel introduces a spunky, appealingly eccentric 13-year-old who identifies with Harriet the Spy and may well rival her for readers' affections." – Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
* "Will make readers giggle out loud." – School Library Journal, starred review
 
* "[Allison] not only offers a credible mystery...but also, by allowing readers inside the heads of both girls, provides particularly strong characterizations–much more substantial than the ubiquitous first-person narrative would have offered." – Booklist, starred review
 
Edgar Award Nominee, Best Juvenile Book
VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers
Sunshine State Young Readers Award Program
A Booklist Top Ten Mysteries of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

From the Publisher

04/01/2014
Gr 2–5—Daniel doesn't get along with his younger brother, so he is not happy when he suddenly has to share his room with him. Iggy breaks his toys, cries at night, and tries to eat everything. The latter is exceptionally problematic when Daniel's new friend Alistair, an alien scientist, comes to visit and Iggy downs all of his specimens and becomes covered in the substance Alistair uses to extract DNA from the bugs. In a "Spiderman"-like twist, these insects cause myriad mutations in Iggy. When an attention-seeking, ill-mannered classmate comes over and fiddles with a space-aged monster transmuting watch, it will be up to Iggy and his new talents to save them all. A perfect science fiction book for beginning chapter-book readers, this story takes a familiar superhero riff and gives it its own twist. Readers with big families and small houses will sympathize with the constant compromises and difficulties of sharing a room, and a house, with younger siblings. The plot moves slowly in the beginning, making this a poor choice for reluctant readers despite the high-interest plot. For advanced beginning readers, the length and appropriate content make it a good choice. The black-and-white cartoons serve to break up the pages.—Devin Burritt, Wells Public Library, ME

School Library Journal

2013-09-01
The author of the Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator series piles on the yuks in this slapstick science-fiction opener. Daniel is outraged that he suddenly has to share a bedroom with Iggy, his way-too-cute ("Why dis not working??!!!! Dis make me so angwy!!!!"), not-quite-toilet-trained little brother. Wider disasters threaten, though, after Iggy swallows new neighbor Alistair's bug collection and begins to acquire insect powers and characteristics. It seems that Alistair and his parents are actually aliens from the planet Blaron, visiting Earth to gather new varieties of broccoli (which they call "frackenpoy") because that's all they can eat. Fortunately, Iggy's symptoms can be suppressed with a Human Normalizer, which looks like a pacifier. Unfortunately, the Blaronites have another device that combines Daniel's obnoxious friend Chauncey Morbyd and a cardboard carton into a robot that will eat the entire universe. Despite a bit of sibling reconciliation at the end, the plot, like the cast, is two-dimensional at best. Readers who relish silly names, broccoli jokes, domestic chaos and gross goo of various sorts in their fiction, as well as lots of robots and aliens, though, will definitely have no cause for complaint. Moran's frequent illustrations range from small views of popeyed cartoon faces to diagrams of DNA molecules and, for some incidents or punch lines, sequential panels. Labored, but it doesn't take psychic powers to see how this could be a crowd pleaser. (Science fiction. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews