  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 05/15/2016 The crew of the interstellar hot dog stand Neon Wiener return, ready to foil another one of evil Queen Dagger’s dastardly schemes. This epic, heavily illustrated follow-up to Cosmoe’s Weiner Getaway (2015) has just as many heroic feats, narrow squeaks, mighty explosions, monster fights, and crude jokes as the first adventure. Dashingly coiffured Earth boy Cosmoe, his two alien sidekicks, and Princess Dagger, the semievil daughter of the aforementioned queen, literally hitch their wagon to a traveling circus that turns out to be capturing aliens to create an army of mind-controlled monsters. Time to, as Cosmoe puts it, “STOP THE BAD DUDES AND SAVE THE DAY!” Readers of the Galactic Hot Dogs webcomic, from which the series is spun, will know they are in for quite a romp. - Copyright 2016 Booklist. Bulletin for the Center... - 06/01/2016 Cosmoe and Humphree return for more hot dog selling and evil vanquishing in this worthy sequel to Galactic Hot Dogs: Cosmoe’s Wiener Getaway (BCCB 9/15). They’ve got Princess Dagger in the mix now, who is still battling her upbringing as a villain (in stressful moments, her go-to solutions are often dark) but who adds good chemistry. In this outing, Cosmoe, Humphree, and Dagger join up with a circus to sell their wares (circus-hating Cosmoe is against this plan from the start) but wind up discovering, and fighting against, a secret plan to use mind control to turn animals into an army. This is a wisecracking, butt-referencing, silly fest of a series, but there are also moments of genuine vulnerability around Cosmoe’s parentlessness and his dislike of the circus. Luckily, he’s got two spectacular friends who are his family now, and the bond between the trio is further cemented in this novel. The joyfully chaotic mix of text, illustrated panels, and full-page illustrations with speech bubbles will be old hat to readers who now have a wealth of these sorts of hybrids to explore, but Brallier and Maguire are among the best at this mixed approach to storytelling. Cosmoe’s the perfect narrator, bluffing when necessary and supremely confident in the right things (his friends, for example), and the illustrations brilliantly reinforce for the reader the extent of his bluster as clear moments of unease on his face only show up in the pictures. This subtlety will likely resonate with kids who know all too well that how one seems is not always how one feels. Final art not seen. AS - Copyright 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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