A solid choice for video-game loving kids.

Surprisingly interesting video game based narrative, that manages to get the persevere-to-succeed message across. ( )

Pretty much all the Branches series are popular at my library. I have most of them together in the juvenile series, except for a couple long-running and older chapter books, Dragon Masters and Notebook of Doom. Personally, there are definitely some I like better than others and this new series isn't going to fall into my personal favorites, but a certain segment of readers will adore it.

Animal Town is a happy place. Until mean King Viking shows up with his robot army! Now their only hope is Super Rabbit Boy - but will he make it past all the obstacles in his path?

This is basically a narrated video game. Super Rabbit Boy jumps, dodges, and fights his way through a number of obstacles, continually confused when he has to start over at the beginning. Periodically, the story switches to the dark-skinned boy playing the game, with notes of his frustration as he tries to get past the final level.

The art is very bright and colorful, made to look like the pixelated art of an old-fashioned video game. The backgrounds are bright and splashy and the various obstacles more silly than scary. The text is divided between the lighter font of the narration and the darker text of the speech bubbles.

To be honest, I found this unutterably boring. The text is choppy and there's no real plot - like I said, it's basically the narration of a video game. Some kids absolutely LOVE this. It's already a popular title at my library and Minecraft and Mario fans gravitate right to it.

Verdict: A good fill-in for readers reluctant to put down their video games for a book.

ISBN: 9781338034714; Published 2017 by Scholastic; Purchased for the library

As if you are part of a video game, a beginning chapter book about Super Rabbit Boy who will save singing dog from King Viking. He does have to pass several levels to get to King Vikings Boom Boom factory. With illustrations mimicking the bits of a computer screen. ( )