The illustration and voice are enjoyable, but the plot is based on nonsensical misinformation. The librarians are evil? The principal wants to give the lunch lady the school librarian position? This is a great title that requires tremendous suspension of disbelief. ( )

I didn't particularly enjoy book 1 of this series so wasn't expecting much from book 2 but I found Lunch Lady more palatable this time around. Librarians around town have gathered forces and are planning world domination with the first order of business to rid the world of video games. The Breakfast Club and Lunch Lady are quickly onto their scheme and with the help of Betty's nifty gadgets it's time for a showdown. I found this volume to have more humour and the plot made sense, though I couldn't help thinking weren't the librarians the good guys, promoting reading over video games? Anyway, better than the first, got a few chuckles out of me and I think kids will appreciate the plot. Strange, but I find myself wondering why the book is dedicated to my old teenage heart throb Ralph Macchio ... ( )

There's evil afoot, and Lunch Lady is there with her trusty hair-netted sidekick Betty to thwart it. Whether its a league of librarians who plan to intercept all the new video game consoles coming in fresh off he boat, or the mild-mannered teacher who created a robot army to replace the other teachers so he can become Teacher of the Year, Lunch Lady and her never-ending arsenal of modified food service devices will be there to save the day.

These graphic novels aimed at the emerging reader has just enough story to keep them moving along and plenty of action to retain the attention of the fussiest readers, but little else. They have a look and feel reminiscent of the the Babymouse series, though they lack that series more rounded characters. The trio of kids - the Breakfast Bunch - are convenient shells for explaining story elements and become useful only when they fall into danger. Lunch Lady (and Betty) should be the focus and we should know more about what makes them tick.

Similarly, this series also makes a play for the Captain Underpants crowd with the wackiness of superheros but are neither as clever in their humor or as gross as they could be. We are talking about cafeteria food here, a prime area for exploration, and it feels little like an opportunity lost that crime if fought only with the utensils. Also, superheroes have backstories that explain and infuse character. Captain Underpants himself is funny because of how he becomes who he is, but with Lunch Lady the reader is supposed to accept her antics simply by virtue of lunch ladies being somewhat off.

I appreciate the idea of producing more long-form comics for this age group but I feel that with kids a certain standard has to be met. I'm not suggesting that the stories can't be fun and frivolous, but that they be delivered with the same expectations that would fall to a work of fiction aimed at the same level. What makes Captain Underpants work with readers isn't that it has underpants in the title, it's that the characters are distinctly drawn, the text is clever and funny, and the story would be almost as funny without illustrations. There's a whole load of possibility in the concept of a superhero Lunch Lady but it's all lost on just-in-time gadgets and one-dimensional characters.

I found that the moment I closed the book I had forgotten most of its story. The same thing happened on rereading them. There is so little to latch onto that they are as immediately forgotten as the empty calories of a celery stalk.

To steal from Douglas Adams: relatively harmless. ( )

An interesting concept executed with great mediocrity. No really worth the trouble. ( )