Review - Space Brat by Bruce Coville

Short review: Blork is a brat who throws epic temper tantrums. Blork is also an alien. That's pretty much it.

Haiku
Blork's an alien
And he throws temper tantrums
He needs his pants kicked

Full review: Blork is an alien. Through a combination of circumstances, Blork is somewhat unfairly labeled a brat. Because labels are destiny, Blork ends up turning into the brattiest alien kid around - capable of throwing epic temper tantrums to get his own way. Foiled by a computer unimpressed with Blork's tantrum abilities, Blork decides to get attention at school by bringing his large, clumsy, and stupid pet poodnoobie named Lunk to school, with disastrous results. Blork has to free his pet from the large pest control system and flees to outer space. Eventually, he lands in an unknown area and learns a valuable life lesson from the inhabitants.

This is not a great book, but then again, it is clearly aimed at readers who are fairly young, so a subtle approach might not have worked to get the intended message across. A young reader (6 or 7) might enjoy the book, but my guess is that those kids for whom the not so subtle message is intended will probably not be the ones picking it up to read. While it is a funny and silly story decently executed, the book is probably of only minor interest to anyone who has completed the second grade, and likely only somewhat interesting to the younger set.

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