Zombert, or Bert is a stray cat who escaped from the YummCo Laboratories on the outside of town and has been adopted by nine-year-old Mellie Gore. He spends his days sleeping in her room and his nights hunting fresh prey. His health and memory have returned after all of his misadventures, and his strength and intellect are out of this world. Mellie, is working as hard as she can to pay for the visit to the vet to make sure that Bert is in tip top shape and is certain her will win the Best Pet contest hosted by the Harvest Festival sponsored by none other than the YummCo company. Readers will wonder if he is the best pet or just the strangest. I would recommend this for any collection and it reminds me of reading Bunnicula as a child and it was one of my favorites. The characters in the book are funny and the mysterious side of the story will appeal to young mystery readers. ( )

I have not read the first book in this series but I think that there was enough exposition, in the beginning, to not be too lost. The author does a good job setting up everything that happened in the first book while not info-dumping and making it hard to remember anything that happened.
It is a spooky children's book but not as scary as I feared. I put it in my classroom library (3rd grade) and my class enjoyed it. They wanted to read the next book right away! ( )

I read the first book in this series (that directly preceded this one) and briefly reviewed it on Goodreads. My thoughts on this sequel are pretty much the same.

This is a fun, quick, kid-suspenseful read that continues the conflict between YummCo, a huge conglomerate company in the town of Lambert, and it’s escaped test subject, a cat named Bert. Again, the chapters alternate a bit between the POVs of Bert and his human, Mellie. I won’t go into too much of the plot because it’s already been done in many reviews.

I appreciated the continuation of supporting characters from the first book, like the bully-slash-friend who winds up helping them in the end. It’s a well-written book that I enjoyed spending an hour or two reading, despite being quite a bit older than they target age range.

However, yet again, the story just… ends. On a cliffhanger. Enough of a cliffhanger that you feel like the conflict really isn’t resolved yet. Like you’re still in the middle of a story. Plenty of other upper-elementary authors have shown that it’s possible to write an unputdownable book that leaves you wanting a sequel, without actually cutting the plot into three unresolved sections (I think this is supposed to be a trilogy? I could be wrong). It would have been worth the risk of losing some of the younger crowd’s attention span in order to flesh this out just a teensy bit more.

All in all, it’s a solid story for the age group intended. It may be a bit much for kiddos who are sensitive to animal cruelty. And it may be a good idea not to hand it to them until the whole series is done being published.

Thank you to the publisher for this ARC. All opinions are my own. ( )

I read this for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the first in the series as well. My take was that it was a good chapter book and quite amusing at times, but my nephew who is ten read both and said he preferred this one. So, even though I thought they were both at about the same level of writing and storytelling, my one-person survey of the intended audience seems to think there has been a lot of improvement over the first. I would consider that a win. ( )

ZomBert is back along with Mellie and Danny in the spooky second installment of this series. Bert is settling into a cozy life with Mellie and her family. He knows he needs to rest and recuperate, and with Mellie's care, Bert is growing smarter and healthier every day. He's even beginning to understand words. However, he hasn't forgotten about the ones he left behind in the lab when he escaped. As he tries to figure out a way to return to the lab and keep his promise to the other animals, Mellie decides to enter him in the YummCo Best Pet Contest.

While going to school and working odd jobs to pay for Bert's care, Mellie befriends an elderly neighbor who's husband used to work at YummCo. Mrs. Witt confides in Mellie that some things at YummCo aren't what they seem. As Mellie works with Bert to learn tricks for the upcoming contest, Danny continues his filming project. When Bert's big day comes, Mellie hopes he has what it takes to win the contest, but the competition is steep. In the blink of an eye, Bert is whisked away and finds himself exactly where he wants to be...in the lab. It's just not how he planned it. Now Bert must figure out how to save himself as well as the others, while Mellie and Danny are left to wonder what happened to Bert. ( )