Super Ghost by Greg James and Chris Smith

Super Ghost by Greg James and Chris Smith
Buy Super Ghost by Greg James and Chris Smith at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: All the imaginative silliness that a kid (or their grown up) could wish for, with everything from a superhero ghost to deadly robot pandas!
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 352	Date: September 2022
Publisher: Puffin
ISBN: 9780241470534
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Paragon City has been lucky to have the great Doctor Extraordinary, their very own superhero taking care of them. Whenever the evil Captain Chaos has come up with another cunning plan (usually involving a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there to thwart her mischief and save the day. But one day the Doctor and the Captain are trapped together inside a giant robot that then explodes, and the hero and the villain are no more. Or are they…?

Having really enjoyed The Great Dream Robbery by Greg James and Chris Smith, I was looking forward to this book, and I'm happy to say it didn't disappoint! This is another great idea for a story, and is perfect for this 9 to 12 age group if they love Marvel or DC or action adventure super hero tales! After the explosion, when everyone assumes that Doctor Extraordinary has died, it is only a young boy, Sonny, who happens to be the Doctor's biggest fan, who can still see him. It turns out that the Doctor is a ghost, but for some reason only Sonny can see and hear him, and as a ghost, he is unable to carry on his super hero work because he can't touch anything, or do anything, and so he needs Sonny's help. Sonny, of course, is laughed at for saying he can still see and hear Doctor Extraordinary. It is only when one of the girls at school, Spot, decides to make a scientific study of Sonny's delusions that they both begin to uncover the truth of what's going on.

As with their previous story, there are lots of authorial asides throughout, and these are my favourite bits. I particularly liked a bit about Barry's badger, which I won't discuss further because of spoilers but you'll see what I mean when you get there! But the little bumps out of the story and back into the real world work really well, and rather than interrupting things, they just add to the light-hearted silliness that the whole book has. I also enjoyed the developing friendship between Sonny and Spot, and watching them figure things out and start to work together is great.

There's plenty of action too, but again it's silly and daft (and involves an awful lot of mini robot pandas!) I loved the grand evil plan, and how things play out at the end, and they somehow manage to make it moving and funny and ridiculous all at once! Once again, the joint writing is seamlessly done, they clearly write really well together as a team. It's easy to read, and would work well either for confident readers who are happy to dive in themselves, or for parents and carers still reading to their slightly younger children. The tone and language is really well pitched for this age group, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a real lift to my spirits, to regress several years (!) and to sit and immerse myself in a story that's just pure, wacky fun.

You might also enjoy another story by Greg and Chris: The Great Dream Robbery or why not try A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the Galaxy by David Solomons

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