It was a bit kooky and over-the-top for me. But just as kids are enamored with Captain Underpants, I'm sure they'll enjoy this one, too.

'The Adventures of Kung Fu Robot: How to Make a Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Kung Fu Sandwich' by Jason Bays makes me want to write my review with lots of exclamation points. That's how tiring the act of reading it was.

Kung Fu Robot is kind of a big dumb hero with a young boy named Marvin as his sidekick. Marvin tries to be the voice of reason, but Kung Fu Robot just blazes on ahead, leaving a wake of mayhem and destruction in his wake. When he decides to make the sandwich in the title, it goes missing. Ninjas have taken it and they work for Kung Pow Chicken. Kung Fu Robot goes after his sandwich with Marvin in tow. All the while, I kept wanting to yell, "just make another sandwich!"

It's loud and bombastic and has a few recurring jokes that it just pounds relentlessly. It's bright and colorful, but there are so many better kids books out there. Still, this may appeal to a certain rambunctious type of kid reader, so who am I to fault it?

I received a review copy of this ebook from Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

I wanted this to be the new Ricky RIcotta but it definitely wasn't. The boy is a worrywart, the robot obnoxious. The plot jumps around. While the inclusion of an app and the interactive nature of the book is innovative, the focus appears to be more on use of the app rather than solid story telling.

This book is a load of Kung Foo fun! It’s very reminiscent of 80’s Saturday morning cartoons, that would take something simple, like making a PBJ sandwich, and have the most absurd things happen. The graphics are spot on, and I bet the action with the available app just makes it an even more entertaining series. I know lots of kids who will be addicted to this series and begging for seconds. P.S. please include the PBJ. I prefer strawberry.

Added Good Reads
Added Litsy

The Adventures of Kung Fu Robot: How to Make a Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Kung Fu Sandwich by Jason Bays is a middle grade novel with plenty of illustrations and silly humor. It is currently scheduled for release on March 28 2017. Kung Fu Robot is an international machine of mystery and the savior of all things awesome and cool. He's the world record holder for ice cream sandwiches eaten in one sitting, the reigning champion of continuous nunchucking, and once won a bronze medal for the simultaneous stomach rubbing and head patting. Together with his 9-year old sidekick, Marvin, he faces his arch-nemesis, Kung Pow Chicken: a robotically-enhanced, foul fowl bent on destroying the city's peanut butter and jelly supply. Kung Fu Robot and Marvin must save the day, and their lunches!

The Adventures of Kung Fu Robot was a fast paced and silly read. The robot is absurdly excited, messy, and destructive while Marvin is the voice of reason and caution. I did like that contrast, and think the words of caution from Marvin might do some readers good to read and hopefully heed. The story did get a little repetitive for my taste, but the story was wacky enough that some readers will enjoy it.

I think The Adventures of Kung Fu Robot will appeal to reluctant or struggling readers because of its repetitive nature, and the crazy nature of the story. As an added incentive to those that enjoy the reader, there is a free interactive companion app for an innovative, augmented reading experience.

My son and I had a great time reading this comic. The Kung Fu part of the sandwich making was imitated immediately (thankfully not with actual food...yet) and the best parts (for my son) was always announced by a large 'Jieehah' exclamation of the Kung Fu Robot. There were a lot of more subtle jokes - I especially liked Marvin's sarcastic comments. And we both just loved the silly but mighty cute little ninja they finally 'adopted'. The style of the illustrations was different from the usual cartoon comics, with bright colors, expressionistic but also with a kind of retro touch to it which was much appreciated (especially by me).

This book is definitely aimed at younger readers, however parents may have double the fun when experiencing the adventures of the Kung Fu robot together with their fascinated kid.

Well, the title does say "How to make a Peanut Butter, Jelly and Kung Fu Sandwich" on the cover, and this is exactly what it is about, how the Kung Fu Robot makes his sandwich. Oh, there is ninja fighting thrown in, as well as making a mess while making the sandwiches.

The humor is silly and a little stupid, such as when the Ninja's steal the sandwich to take it hostage, and the boy side-kick, Marvin, says "The sandwich has been taken hostage...OK, well, I was wrong. It did manage to get more ridiculous."

Even the ultimate super villain, Kung Pow Chicken, is silly. "If I let anything that makes people happy exist...[then] I'm not a very good villain am I? So I'm loading all the peanut butter and jelly into two giant rockets and sending them both to the moon or outer space or something, I don't really care."

Kids, which is who this book is aimed at, might like all the repetition, and silliness, but I find it boring, and just want the story to move on, which it sort of does at the end. Probably good for middle-schoolers, but they should spare their parents.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

They Got the "Madcap" Part Right

This is a fast paced and clever entry in the silly-superhero sweepstakes, and it does what it does very well. Kung Fu Robot is the hero and main character, while his nine year old sidekick Marvin serves mainly as a Greek chorus commenting on the action and having his warnings and predictions of doom and danger ignored. This combo works very well. Kung Fu Robot is actually a fairly endearing goofus and Marvin gets all the funniest throwaway lines.

The plot is built entirely around the wonder, appeal and sheer awesomeness of peanut butter and jelly and kung fu sandwiches. (The kung fu comes in when you slap the two slices of bread together.) An evil chicken villain is stealing all of the peanut butter and jelly in the city, and Kung Fu Robot has to stop him. We start with an extended scene involving the making of a sandwich that turns out to be unacceptable because made with chunky peanut butter. So it's off to the grocery story, where we have a lengthy scene of android ninja fighting. Then we're off to the chicken's lair for a final decisive showdown. This sounds silly, and of course it is, but given the length of the book this really reads like at least three full graphic novellas collected in one volume. There is a lot of reading value here.

I appreciated that there isn't a single fart joke in the entire book. Actually, if anything there are many fairly sophisticated jokes, (many delivered by Marvin), and some of those lines could be entertaining for parents and older readers and might very well go over littler readers' heads. That's fine; I'd rather be stepping up in class than going down.

The drawing isn't traditional, but it isn't manga style. It's sort of disjointed and angular and expressionistic. But, it's almost always clear what's going on, which I guess is the most important thing.

The book invites the reader to download a phone app that makes the book interactive. I didn't test that, but I've seen it with other books and that does add a whole new dimension to the experience. Whether it's a good idea to tie a kid's book to a phone app and bring the whole phone deal into the reading equation is something, I suspect, that each person has to decide for himself.

So, this is good-natured, fun, funny, energetic and extremely fast paced. It struck me as a nice change from the usual fare and so might be worth a look. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)