Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute

Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute

Citation:

Krosoczka, J. J. (2009). Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children's Books. ISBN: 9780329714536

Plot Summary:

                Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute opens with Hector, Terrence, and Dee musing about the daily lives of their lunch ladies. The graphic novel opens with the Lunch Lady stopping a robbery. The children, also known as the Breakfast Bunch, are addressing the question of what she does when Hector is targeted by the school bully Miloe, but before he can steal Hector’s lunch money, a substitute teacher stops him! Now, who is the substitute, and who is he subbing for? Why Mr. O’Connell, the math teacher, but that just does not make sense because he is never out sick and he never gives them this much homework. Mr. O’Connell was the favorite teacher of the year, but not with this new substitute. The Lunch Lady and Betty have a secret lab in the boiler room where they test out new gadgets and monitor the school. The Lunch Lady decides to inspect the substitute’s classroom while he is in the teacher’s lounge and she finds a disc! The Lunch Lady decides to follow the substitute after school, and the Breakfast Bunch decides to follow her after school too. They follow the substitute to a warehouse and find that he’s not human, but a robot Mr. Edison invented. The Breakfast Bunch follows the Lunch Lady into the warehouse room only to be confronted by a heap of robots. Then Betty captures Mr. Edison and Hector saves the day by turning off the robots with his remote for his science project.

Critical Analysis:

                Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute is a children’s graphic novel that delves into the depths of what does the Lunch Lady do when she is not serving meals at school. The pictures and captions capture the feel of a school and the Lunch Lady’s sayings like “good gravy!” and “cauliflower!” adds life and character to her. The pictures are ink drawings that tell the story are phenomenal because of the simplicity and the story they are sharing. This book will teach children to wonder about what teachers and others they interact with do in their spare time when they are not at school. This is the first graphic novel I have ever read and now I am going to read the whole series!

Reviews:

Booklist: “This tongue-in-cheek superheroine graphic novel will hit the spot for chapter-book readers. Lunch Lady and Betty, her assistant in both the cafeteria and her role of wrong-­righting supersleuth, investigate the strange case of an absent teacher, his creepy substitute, and a plan to grab the Teacher of the Year Award by truly foul means. Three little kids join in the action as Lunch Lady, equipped with a variety of high-tech kitchen gadgets like a spatu-copter and a lunch-tray laptop, tracks a cleverly disguised robot to his maker’s lab, where a whole army of cyborgs require kicking, stomping, and the wielding of fish-stick nunchucks. Yellow-highlighted pen-and-ink cartoons are as energetic and smile-provoking as Lunch Lady’s epithets of “Cauliflower!” and Betty’s ultimate weapon, the hairnet. There is a nice twist in the surprise ending, and the kids’ ability to stand up to the school bully shows off their newfound confidence in a credible manner. Little details invite and reward repeat readings with visual as well as verbal punning.”

Connections:

-          Lunch Lady series

-          Platypus and the Police Squad: the Frog who Croaked

o   Jarrett J. Krosoczka

o   ISBN: 978-0062071644

-          Babymouse series

o   Jennifer Holm

All review courtesy of Amazon.com