The Evil Penguin Plan by Maxwell Eaton III, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Action! Danger! Occasional napping!

Maxwell Eaton III opens his new series of "comic" (pun-intended) graphic novel adventures featuring The Flying Beaver Brothers Ace and Bub with The Evil Penguin Plan.

Ace — he's the one who likes action and adventure — is preparing for the annual Beaver Island Surfing Competition when a couple of penguins steal his surfboard. He wakes his brother Bub — he's the one who likes napping — and they take off after them. Ace follows the thieves to their underwater hideout, where he sees blueprints for a dastardly device to cover Beaver Island with ice, creating Penguin Paradise: Resort and Polar Style Living — "Like home never melted." Ace is determined to thwart the penguins' plans, but where is Bub? Meanwhile, a surfing competitor has his own plans to take the top prize by eliminating the competition.

"The Flying Beaver Brothers" is intended to be a series of eco-conscious graphic novels, but the message is really quite subtle here, and will almost certainly not be apparent to the intended audience of 6- to 9-year-old readers. Rather, these readers will no doubt focus on the action-oriented antics of Ace and Bub, more of the former than the latter, and the fast-paced, well thought out storyline that links the two subplots in a clever manner. Adults who choose to read along with the kids will chuckle at the frequently amusing wordplay. The Evil Penguin Plan is an entertaining start to this series.

Acknowledgment: Random House provided a copy of The Evil Penguin Plan for this review.

The Fishy Business
Alfred A. Knopf (Trade Paperback), January 2012
ISBN-13: 9780375864483; ISBN-10: 0375864482

The Evil Penguin Plan

The Flying Beaver Brothers by Maxwell Eaton III