Planet Tad (Planet Tad Series #1)

by Tim Carvell, Doug Holgate (Illustrator)

Overview

Twelve-year-old Tad is a blogger with a plan, in the book Jon Stewart calls "hilarious to anyone who ever went through, is currently in, might go to, or flunked out of middle school."

Tad has an agenda: Survive seventh grade. He also wants to: grow a mustache, get girls to notice him, and do a kickflip on his skateboard. But those are not the main reasons he started a blog. Tad just has a lot of important thoughts he wants to share with the world, like: Here is the first thing I have learned about having a dog in your house: Don't feed them nachos. Not ever.

This highly illustrated and hilarious book is by the Emmy(R) Award-winning former head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and is based on a column in MAD Magazine. Through a series of daily entries, readers are treated to a year in Tad's blog that will leave them in stitches.

MAD Magazine and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and (c) E.C. Publications. (s14)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061934384
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/23/2014
Series:	Planet Tad Series , #1
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	760,680
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 5.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

"Hilarious to anyone who ever went through, is currently in, might go to, or flunked out of middle school." -- Jon Stewart

"This book will make you laugh. If you're not into that sort of thing, consider yourself warned." -- Stephen Colbert

"Tad is the rapid-fire, pop-culture-referencing, actually-funny stand-up-comic-in-waiting that I wanted to be in middle school!" -- Tom Angleberger

From the Publisher

Tad is the rapid-fire, pop-culture-referencing, actually-funny stand-up-comic-in-waiting that I wanted to be in middle school!

Tom Angleberger

This book will make you laugh. If you’re not into that sort of thing, consider yourself warned.

Stephen Colbert

Hilarious to anyone who ever went through, is currently in, might go to, or flunked out of middle school.

Jon Stewart

Based on a column that Carvell, head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, has written for Mad magazine since 2005, this episodic illustrated novel presents a year’s worth of blog entries from Tad, an underachieving, none-too-popular kid in the vein of Wimpy Kid Greg Heffley. Without a narrative arc, the book’s momentum comes from Carvell’s distinctive sense of humor. While Tad’s musings often feel like they’ve been pulled from the mind of a stoner at 2 a.m. rather than that of a 12-year-old boy (“You know what I bet would suck? If you died and went to heaven, but really hated harp music”), the target audience ought to find them hilarious. Amid familiar entries about family trips, a lawn-mowing business scheme, and a secret admirer, Tad watches a lot of TV, which lets Carvell riff on the pop culture pantheon, from Avatar (both the James Cameron and air-bending versions) to The Legend of Zelda. Holgate’s cartoon spot art, not all seen by PW, is a good fit, underscoring the awesomeness of an eight-horned unicorn or the absurdity of Hannah Montana’s “disguise.” Ages 8–12. (May)

Publishers Weekly

A phoned-in Diary of a Wimpy Kid wannabe from a Mad Magazine and Daily Show writer. Based on a blog of the same name that runs in Mad, the narrative is framed as nearly daily entries over the course of a calendar year by a middle-school Seinfeld. The content is entirely predictable. He skates on or over the edge of embarrassment while trying to be noticed by girls, generally comes out second best in dealings with his gifted little sister and briefly lands a summer job wearing a hot-dog suit. He joins several of his classmates in making a (wait for it) science-project volcano and records many similarly unexceptional experiences and encounters. These entries are thickly padded with a monotonous litany of callow opinions on dozens of cultural markers from various commercial mascots (including Ronald McDonald) to TV shows (Jeopardy, for example) and movies (Jurassic Park, among many others). These share space with complaints about minor annoyances like gum in water-fountain drains and superficially clever ruminations about why "werewolves" aren't called "arewolves," the nature of Santa's reindeer games and like burning topics. Moreover, he decides that his school mascot, movies about volcanoes, work and a mind-numbing catalog of other irritations all "suck." So does this tedious effort to climb aboard the bandwagon. (line drawings, mood icons) (Fiction. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews