Title: The Notebook of Doom #8 The Charge of the Lightning Bugs
Author & Illustrator: Troy Cummings
Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-79554-8
Summary: When Alexander captures lightning bugs the day before school starts, he never dreams what the consequences might be. By the next day, Alexander’s alarm clock had stopped working, dad’s car battery was dead, and the electrical system in the school was slowly shutting down, and the traffic lights were malfunctioning. The next day there was a green lightning storm and at the planetarium the stars moved across the sky creating pictures and spelling out a warning. Alexander and his friends went to investigate. Different colored lightning bugs zapped the kids on the head. And worse of all, a giant lightning bug hatched from a cocoon sucking up all the electricity in the school. Then Alexander saves the day by taking the electrical power back from the lightning bug. He wore his rubber gloves and tricked the lightning bug into zapping his wrench while he worked on the school’s electrical power box.
Literary Merit: High interest subject and vocabulary encouraging kids to read chapter books.
Kid Appeal: Monsters and Monster-Fighting Friends!
Disclaimer: This book was nominated for the 2015 CYBILS Award in the Early Chapter Book category. This review is shared as part of the Round One Judging. It is solely my own opinion and not influenced by any other parties.
Juliana Lee 
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