Krosoczka, Jarrett J. (2009). Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute. New York: Random House, Inc. ISBN 9780375946837
Summary
Lunch Lady and the
Cyborg Substitute is a fanciful graphic novel illustrating the secret
identity of the school lunch lady. When substitutes begin showing up at school,
creating unreasonable assignments for students, the Lunch Lady digs deep to
find out what’s really going on. Students named Hector, Dee, and Terrence
secretly follow the Lunch Lady in hopes of finding out more about her. They
learn of her secret identity and witness her heroic efforts to save the
students from the evil cyborg substitutes.
Analysis
This Lunch Lady
tale appropriately takes place in a school. Regular facets of a school are
included, however, there is a special boiler room where the Lunch Lady and her
friend and sidekick, Betty, develop their ideas and contraptions.
Characters are comical and fit the typical good vs. evil
nature of comic books. Hector, Dee, and Terrence are curious schoolchildren who
are fascinated by their lunch lady. Lunch Lady herself is a hilarious character,
fighting crime with kitchen gadgets and puns. The cyborg, Mr. Pasteur, plays a
wonderfully despised substitute, and Mr. Edison, the trickster teacher, fits the
villain position well.
The story takes us through a typical plot line. After
learning about the characters in the introduction, our rising action develops
when the students seek information about the Lunch Lady, while Lunch Lady seeks
information about Mr. Pasteur. The climax arrives when Lunch Lady discovers
that Pasteur is really a cyborg developed by Mr. Edison in an effort to win
Teacher of the Year. Lunch Lady destroys the cyborgs. In the falling action, normalcy
is restored in the school. In the end, however, jailbird Edison has a visitor
that is “ready for their next assignment”, enticing readers to move on to the
next Lunch Lady book.
Krosoczka’s style of writing is kid and adult friendly.
His “punny” writing entertains the reader and keeps the story focused on the
fact that she works in a school cafeteria. Lunch Lady uses a lunch tray laptop,
spork phone, and spatu-copter to help research her nemesis and plan her attack.
Her chosen weaponry is chicken nugget bombs and fish stick nunchucks. She uses
expressions like, “I’m on him like cheese on macaroni!” and “It looks like
today’s special is a knuckle sandwich!”. Throughout Lunch Lady’s hilarious story line, themes of good versus evil
emerge.
A final important feature of the graphic novel is the
illustrations. Not every illustration is supplemented with words, so Krosoczka’s
unique drawings help tell the story. Each page is colored mostly in grayscale,
with touches of yellow to enhance various parts of the illustrations.
Personal Response
Lunch Lady and the
Cyborg Substitute is a fun graphic novel. I can understand why students are
so enthralled with not only Krosoczka’s hysterical stories, but graphic novels
in general. These books are a great way to hook reluctant readers, especially
boys!
Reviews and Awards
2010 Children’s Choice Award Winner
“With plenty of silliness and slapstick in
the text and panel art alike, this comic should alleviate lunch-line boredom
with visions of servers wielding fishstick-nunchucks and growling,
"Today's special is a knuckle sandwich." – Publisher’s Weekly
“This tongue-in-cheek superheroine graphic novel will hit the spot for
chapter-book readers.” -Booklist
Connections
Students can chose another important adult in the school
(i.e. librarian, principal, custodian) and create an alter ego for them. They
can create their own comic book adventure for their chosen character.
Jarrett Krosoczka provides wonderful presentations to
students about following your dreams and never giving up. A librarian can
invite him to share his stories of struggles and triumphs while evolving into an
extraordinary author/illustrator. Information for school visits is available at
http://www.studiojjk.com/schoolvisits.html
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