March of the Mini Beasts (DATA Set Series #1)

by Ada Hopper, Sam Ricks (Illustrator)

Overview

Danger! Action! Trouble! Adventure! Introducing The DATA Set, a brand-new chapter book series for young readers.

What would happen if your next-door neighbor were a mad scientist?

Gabe, Laura, and Cesar live on a quiet cul-de-sac. They are the whiz kids of Newtonburg Elementary and each specializes in their own subject. In fact, everyone in town lovingly refers to them as the Data Set. However, their quiet days of learning take a sudden turn for the exciting when they meet Dr. Gustav Bunsen—a mad scientist who throws the kids into a wild spiral of adventures.

When Dr. Bunsen’s latest invention, a growth ray, hits several tiny animal toys, the mini beasts don’t just grow, they come to life! The DATA Set love their new tiny pets…until they continue to grow. Now there’s an actual elephant in the room—not to mention a chimp, a giraffe, and a dinosaur. When the beasts wander off, it’s up to the DATA Set to track them down. But will they catch the mini beasts before they grow big enough to start trouble in town?

With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, The DATA Set chapter books are perfect for beginning readers!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481457286
Publisher:	Little Simon
Publication date:	04/05/2016
Series:	The DATA Set , #1
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	520L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

Ada Hopper has been extremely inventive ever since she was little. There was nothing that a rubber band and some tweezers couldn’t fix, no question that couldn’t be answered by scouring the library, and no way she wasn’t escaping over that backyard fence! Ada loves reading and writing because of all the fantastical worlds a good book can bring you to. When not working, Ada enjoys karaoke, spending time with her family, and going on the occasional adventure or two.

Sam Ricks grew up creating stories about toxic fruitcakes and peanut butter–snatching aliens. He is the illustrator of several books for young readers, including The DATA Set series. Sam earned his BA from Brigham Young University and his MA from the University of Baltimore. He is a founding member of Cotopaxi: Gear For Good. He, his wife, and their five children live in Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit Sam at SamRicks.com.

Read an Excerpt

March of the Mini Beasts

Editorial Reviews

02/29/2016
Hopper brings a wealth of humor to this series opener about three Hispanic second-graders nicknamed the Data Set, thanks to their science-minded smarts and taste for adventure. After Gabe Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet a quirky scientist, Dr. Benson, while selling chocolate bars for the school’s science club, one of the man’s inventions brings several animal toys to life, including a stegosaurus. Ricks’s pencil illustrations amplify the story’s freewheeling energy as the kids try to wrangle the fast-growing animals, and a time-travel cliffhanger ending will leave readers reaching for the sequel, Don’t Disturb the Dinosaurs, available simultaneously. Ages 5–9. Illustrator’s agent: Minju Chang, Bookstop Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2016
Gr 1–3—Gabe, Laura, and Cesar are their town's resident whiz kids, affectionately known by their peers as the Data Set. All three love science, and each of them brings a different specialized skill to their group. Gabe, the leader, loves animals and dinosaurs; Laura is the engineer; and Cesar is the historian with a photographic memory. These skills come in handy when they stumble into an accidental adventure incited by their mad scientist neighbor, Dr. Gustav Bunsen. Dr. Bunsen tests out his newest invention, a growth ray, on Gabe's animal toys. The device works too well, and in addition to causing the toys to grow, it brings them to life! The Data Set, together with Dr. Bunsen, must use their collective knowledge and skills to find a solution to this problem. This is the first in a series of introductory chapter books for emerging readers. The humorous narrative voice is the highlight of this book, which features a large typeface and black-and-white illustrations throughout. The solution to the central problem is unsatisfying, but this may not be of consequence to the target audience, who will enjoy the journey nonetheless. VERDICT Employing quirky humor and capable protagonists, this chapter book will be of interest to young fans of science fiction and adventure.—Tiffany Davis, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, NY

School Library Journal

2016-01-09
When Dr. Bunsen, Gabe, Laura, and Cesar's mad-scientist neighbor, tries out his growth machine on Gabe's plastic animal toys, there's an unexpected result—they come to life. Second-grade whiz kids Gabriel Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet their strange neighbor while fundraising for a science-club field trip. Known to their classmates as "the Data Set," they each have individual passions: Gabe loves animals; Laura loves to tinker and invent; Cesar loves to read and eat. There's room for all these activities in their well-equipped treehouse. Together, their fantastic adventures will be the stuff of four titles scheduled for 2016 and aimed directly at first- and second-graders already devouring books. This episode introduces the characters, sets up the problem (the cute but rapidly growing baby animals), and finds a solution (sneak them into the zoo) in 126 fast-paced pages written with plenty of dialogue and copiously illustrated with appealing drawings. With these Latino protagonists—Cesar has dark skin and curly hair, while Laura and Gabe have lighter skin and straight hair—and a STEM-infused plot, this would seem to have been made to order for today's elementary school students. While the emphasis is far more on plot than STEM, the kid-friendly fantasy should captivate readers, who will certainly want to gobble up the next installment. (Tantalizingly, the opening pages are included.) First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series. (Adventure. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews