Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot
Scholastic Canada
age 5-8
by Dav Pilkey, art by Dan Santat
112 pages
Synopsis from Scholastic Canada:
Little Ricky Ricotta has a problem: the bullies at school pick on him all the time. Until one day, he saves the life of a mighty robot. Together, Ricky and his Robot face the bullies, and save Squeakyville from a giant evil lizard monster. That’s what friends are for!
A little early chapter book, a little comic book, a lot of fun, The Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot is a series from the creators of Captain Underpants (a favourite with my two youngest). Unlike most early chapter books, Ricky Ricotta’s Might Robot is very image driven, filling all the pages with colourful illustrations to support the words in the story. The chapters are short making it perfect for beginner readers looking to transition into longer stories but you may find them reading right to the end.
Young readers will also find some elements of the story, usually action sequences, told using additional graphic elements like comic book frames and flip-o-ramas (where the user rapidly flips between two pages to create an small animated scene). The pages survived my vigorous page flipping for the flip-o-rama but I would be worried that this feature could result in ripped pages. Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot is a series with five books available at the time of this review. The first book, simply Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot, does establish how Ricky gained his robot as a friend and how they work together to fight evil doers but the reader doesn’t need to follow the books in order. Each story seems to be self contained with Rickey and his robot dealing with a new bad guy in each new book.
You can see a sample of the various books in the Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot series on the Scholastic Canada site. Plus your kids can also make and print their own robot creation, perhaps a sidekick when reading their favourite Ricky story.
You can find a copy of Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot at your local bookstore or at Scholastic Canada. Visit our Kid’s Books section for other great book recommendations.
The kids favorite superhero. It will remind them to be a good person.