Book Review: Star Scouts

Book: Star Scouts written and illustrated by Mike Lawrence

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: March 21, 2017

Description:

Avani is the new kid in town, and she’s not happy about it. Everyone in school thinks she’s weird, especially the girls in her Flower Scouts troop. Is it so weird to think scouting should be about fun and adventure, not about makeovers and boys, boys, boys?

But everything changes when Avani is “accidentally” abducted by a spunky alien named Mabel. Mabel is a scout too―a Star Scout. Collecting alien specimens (like Avani) goes with the territory, along with teleportation and jetpack racing. Avani might be weird, but in the Star Scouts she fits right in. If she can just survive Camp Andromeda, and keep her dad from discovering that she’s left planet Earth, she’s in for the adventure of a lifetime.



Rating: 5 stars

Review:

Imagine finding out there's a fun scout troop in space and you have the chance to join them.

In Star Scouts, Avani Patel was having a terrible time at her Flower Scouts meeting. She couldn't connect with the other girls in her troop and it didn't help that she's also a little grumpy, brusque and standoffish. Avani is so used to being treated as an outsider or being teased for liking things that are different that she doesn't realize that she treats others the same way. For instance, there was another girl in the Flower Scouts who was trying to be her friend but Avani brushed her off without even realizing that at least one of the girls was trying to be nice to her.

Walking home from her meeting in the rain only added to her disappointment when the unexpected happened. She was being teleported to a space ship where she immediately found herself face to face with an alien (who actually appears at the beginning of this four part or chapter story). After taking care of the language barrier, Avani found out that she was there by accident.

Mabel is a Star Scout and was trying to earn another badge by collecting an alien specimen from Earth when she accidently brought Avani to her space ship. After a fun little talk, it wasn't long before Mabel was asking Avani to join the Star Scouts.

Flower Scouts wasn't really for her anyway and now Avani was happy to finally be a part of a group that offered something different and exciting. The following week, she had the pleasure and awkwardness of meeting the rest of her new scout troop (Diane and Steve) and troop leader (Roger) and learning how to fly with a jet pack. How cool is that?

Over the next few weeks she got to do even more fun and adventurous things but the real excitement was yet to come. In two weeks the troop will be heading to Camp Andromeda for a week of activities.

Things became very competitive at camp thanks to a misunderstanding and accident which had Avani, Mabel, Diane and Steve going up against another group of scouts. It's even more important that Avani win the competition or she may have to leave camp.

With terrific writing, great artwork and interesting characters, this turned out to be a fun read. Being the new kid is not always the easiest thing but sometimes as in this case, it can end up being a whole new adventure. I like how the story dealt with friendship, in the beginning it didn't seem like Avani was open to making new friends especially since she missed her old ones. But a chance meeting with Mabel made it possible for her start over and make new friends. I also like the ending because it gave her another chance to fix a mistake and make a new friend.