  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 05/01/2015 Seven woodland creatures in a spaceship are making their way home after successfully finding the Nuts of Legend, which imbue their bearers with immortality and invincibility, as long as no one eats them. That’s a big problem for the crew, because all their food is gone, and those nuts are looking mighty tasty. To add to their troubles, hungry Beaver takes a bite out of their star chart, and now they are lost! The crew stops at a few planets to ask for directions, eventually landing at the Death Banana, which is helmed by a Napoleonic Vader type and an army of storm trooper monkeys. Though the plot’s a bit slight, Dolan makes up for it with jaunty, frenetic cartoon goofiness, rendered in doodlelike figures on oversize full-color spreads. Speech bubbles and background antics add gleeful side stories and diverting jokes that will get little ones poring over illustrations to find hidden details, while parents will likely appreciate the spoof on sci-fi classics. Kids who love yuks will dig this merrily manic tale. - Copyright 2015 Booklist. School Library Journal - 05/01/2015 K-Gr 3—From the author of Weasels (Candlewick, 2014) comes another fantastically wacky tale of space travel, hunger, betrayal, and…nuts? A motley crew of space-faring animals clad in Trekkie uniforms return from their mission of retrieving the Lost Nuts of Legend, only to realize that they are out of provisions and that Beaver, the engineer, ate their map. Their quest for directions results in a wild odyssey, culminating in an encounter with the dreaded Death Banana, crewed by storm trooper monkeys who try to steal the coveted nuts. Upon escaping and following large arrows that read, "Home, this way," the crew discovers that Beaver ate the nuts, and they must turn the starship around and head back into space. Illustrated mostly on full-bleed oversize spreads, Dolan's cartoonish drawings overflow with myriad visual jokes and speech balloons that perfectly complement the tongue-in-cheek narrative. VERDICT For those who get the references and humor and have the patience to pore over the dizzying array of details, this is veritable tour-de-farce that is sure to appeal to young fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, and general comic book silliness.—Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY - Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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