Fly Guy vs the Flyswatter by Tedd Arnold

Fly Guy vs the Flyswatter by Tedd Arnold

Rating: 3.5 stars

Please learn from my mistake: Don't read this book before you take a vacation at the beach, where there are flies aplenty.

In it, Fly Guy takes a field trip to a flyswatter company, where he hides in his buddy Buzz's shirt pocket, afraid for his life.  He cowers even lower when each kid gets their very own flyswatter and happily zips them through the air.  And when a robotic flyswatter comes out with its swatter arms a-blazin'...Fly Guy almost loses it completely.  His big bug eyes are even bigger, which I didn't think was possible!

Of course he ends up okay, but in the reading of the book I had to explain--or remind--Lorelei and Ben what a flyswatter is, and what it does.  This was all fine and dandy in our fly-free home in Virginia, but...

Flash forward six not-so-bad, the-traffic-gods-were-smiling-on-us hours in the car and we are at the beach, where two annoying flies met us in the kitchen.  I started looking for the flyswatter.  When I found it, Lorelei and Ben looked at me.

"Don't kill Fly Guy!" they said.

Shoot.  Man these kids have good memories.  Too good, really...

So it's Kate vs the Flies after bedtime.

When I read the first book in this series (review here), I was on the fence.  Maybe I'm not ready for the boy humor that will certainly be coming my way with two boys cracking each other up too quickly.  I still think they are a little better than just okay, but I am beginning to see their mass appeal.  The stories are funny; the characters quirky and likable.  There are little "chapters" in the book, so Ben sort of thinks that he's reading a chapter book but since there's an explosion of Magic Treehouse in our house, he understands it's not the real deal.  Still, for a 3 or 4 year old boy (or girl) who has yet to latch onto books, this is worth a try.

Just wait until after the beach for this one!