Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers [Paperback]

A hilarious send-up of fantasy quest novels, perfect for fans of Adam Gidwitz and Jon Scieszka. 

Welcome to the kingdom of Great Kerfuffle! 

Great Kerfuffle is really great. And there's usually a kerfuffle (the clue's in the name really). This particular kerfuffle started the day Stinkbomb's twenty dollar bill went missing. Stinkbomb and his little sister Ketchup-Face know exactly who took it: the badgers. After all, they're calledbadgers because they dobadthings; otherwise they'd just begers.

They bring news of the badgers' treachery to King Toothbrush Weasel (don't get us started on the story behind his name…), who sends them on a quest to rid the land of badgers. What follows is a full on kerfuffle-fest, containing:  one deep dark forest, a grocery cart in distress, a song about jam--and, of course, a band of very tricky badgers.

Be prepared to laugh your socks off, and maybe your ears, too. Exuberantly silly from start to finish . . . Dougherty packs his story with winking references to adventure story tropes, as well as self-referential, metafictional humor (’Do you mean you’re in a story now?’ the king asks the children. ‘Oh, yes,’ responds Ketchup-Face. ‘You can tell because of all the chapters and page numbers and stuff’). Between playful typography, a nearly nonstop onslaught of jokes, and Ricks’s jittery b&w cartooning, it’s a solid choice for readers who have exhausted the Captain Underpants library.  —Publishers Weekly 

Take a dollop of Jon Scieszka's classic fairy-tale sendups, add a swirl of M.T. Anderson's humorously perilous quests, garnish with a Snicket-ian narrator's crumbled fourth wall, and you have the hilarious first adventure of Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face on the island of Great Kerfuffle. . . . With metafictive flare, a truly expert deployment of absurdity, al³+