Night of the Living Rocks

The wait is over for those eagerly anticipating the next “Lunch Club” adventure. In Night of the Living Rocks, readers will catch up with Tia and Leo as they try to rescue their friends, Ariel (guardian of the zodiac sign Pisces) and Snookums (guardian of the zodiac sign Leo), from the clutches of the evil Madame Celeste.

Using magical crystals mined by her army of living rocks, Madame Celeste’s plan involves capturing all the zodiac guardians in order to allow her to control the future. When she learns of a thirteenth guardian with even greater powers, she unleashes the guardian of the snail who is even more evil than Madame Celeste, herself, and is bent on destroying the whole planet. As usual, it’s up to Tia, Leo, and Mr. Peabody to save the day!

There is some time in the story spent flashing back in time to explain to readers just why Madame Celeste is so angry; her lonely childhood has made it so she wants nothing more than to have lots of friends. This explains my favourite new additions to the Lunch Club universe: the living rocks (some of whom would prefer to go back to being regular rocks). They are each illustrated just a little bit differently and call to mind the famous minions from the Despicable Me movies, except with higher-level verbal skills!

The pacing in this particular story seems a little rushed at times; Madame Celeste is very quick to abandon her plan to control the future once she realizes that the snail guardian isn’t what she expected. She’s all of a sudden with the Lunch Club instead of against them as they work to defeat the new villain. That said, I suppose expecting anything different from a 134-page graphic novel doesn’t make a lot of sense; fast-paced and action-packed is pretty much the game plan for the entirety of this series.

As per usual, this graphic novel is full of bursts of colour, hilarious facial expressions, and clever background details. In addition to existing fans already invested in the series, Night of the Living Rocks would appeal to readers who have previously enjoyed “The InvestiGators”, “Dog Man”, or the “Hockey Super Six” series.