Story of a zombie goldfish and a vampire kitten nextdoor ( )

Knew this was going to be a weird ride when it began with a little brother being a bratty kid and mishearing hormonal as "home-moanal" then saying "he's been moaning a lot" because that is hilarious on so many levels adult and child.

From there it's a quick read, Tom comes off autistic in ways, as he displays a weird amount of literal thinking. Finger sandwiches don't have fingers in them. Dead meat is well, dead meat. On the double he expects a clone of his friend to appear. And so forth. It's clear he has either a wild imagination or signs of early autism like some autistic kids possess.

I expected Frankie to be evil, given he's born from an evil science experiment, but rather, he's simply a fish, albeit one who can hypnotize.

Seeing there's more of these books, I just might try to read past this one. They're fast reads, providing a swift plot with bare bones included, but it's a ride regardless. ( )

This isn't my favorite easy, humor book for reluctant readers, but it's definitely worth a recommendation to those middle grade boys who think reading is as bad as getting a cavity filled (without novocaine).

Tom's ultra mean older brother gets a chemistry set and the first thing he does is make a concoction to put in the goldfish bowl for his science assignment. Tom is a soft kind of kid and can't just stand by an watch the goldfish die. So he SOSes his best friend Pradeep and hustles the fish to the bathroom to wash off all the gunk, but it's too late. The fish goes belly-up. But Tom doesn't give up. He grabs a battery and zaps the fish back to life, hence the new name Frankie (Frankenstein). The bad news is that Frankie is now a zombie, and he hates Tom's evil brother Mark who started this in the first place. The odd thing is that if you stare into Frankie's zombie eyes, you will go into a zombie trance. Mark figures this out and hijacks the school's computer system to transmit a picture of Frankie so everyone will go into a zombie trance and be under his control.

Ok, so the plot is out there, absurd really. Which is why I can only give it 3 stars. I kind of felt like this could have been written by a kid. It doesn't have the finesse of [b: Stickdog] or [b: Timmy Failure|15798116|Mistakes Were Made (Timmy Failure, #1)|Stephan Pastis|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1354889587s/15798116.jpg|21521034], but the book cover is great and kids love anything about zombies, so recommend away. ( )

Summary:
The main character Tom has an older brother who decides to become an evil scientist. His brother, Mark, has a school experiment which he decides to use a goldfish for. The fish Frankie is exposed to the toxicity of the experiment, and dies. Being the character Tom is, he uses a battery in hopes that Frankie will come back to life and when he does, he isn't the same fish anymore..he is a ZOMBIE fish!

Personal Reaction:
My son comes home with these books he gets from his school library and he is always talking about how great they are. Well he certainly has a sense of humor because this book is so funny! I found myself laughing out loud on the first page from the humor of the sibling rivalry and how Tom refers to his brother Mark as evil. I think it is cute because I can see the reactions of Mark and Tom in both my two older boys, as well as relate to it back in my childhood between my younger brother and myself.

Class Extension Ideas:
1. The class can conduct an experiment on pollution after reading the story.
2. Do a pet show and tell. Students can bring a picture of their pets and after showing them to the class, they can do an activity where they write a short story about what their pets would do if they were zombies. ( )