The Grateful Fred (Melvin Beederman, Superhero Series #3)

by Greg Trine, Rhode Montijo (Illustrator)

Overview

Bad guys tremble at the sound of his name!

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

Dear Melvin,
We need your help. Someone has been sending us threatening letters. We don't know who it is. Please come to our concert tonight, just in case.
Sincerely,
Fred of The Grateful Fred

Someone is out to get the Grateful Fred, Melvin Beederman's all-time favorite rock-and-roll band. Can he and his partner-in-uncrime, Candace, find out who it is before it's too late? Or will Joe the Okay Guy turn into Joe the Bad Guy and put an end to the Grateful Fred once and for all?

In this third installment of the Melvin Beederman series, only the narrator knows for sure!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805079227
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	10/31/2006
Series:	Melvin Beederman, Superhero Series , #3
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	1,096,775
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.45(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

GREG TRINE is the author of the Melvin Beederman, Superhero books. He is also the author of the young adult book, The Second Base Club. He lives with his family in his Southern California hideout.

RHODE MONTIJO is Superhero Greg's sidekick. He enjoys creating art from his topsecret headquarters in California.

Read an Excerpt

Grateful Fred, The

---

By Trine, Greg

Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Copyright © 2006 Trine, Greg
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0805079211

---

1
The Superhero's Lab
 
Superhero Melvin Beederman was in his tree house taking it easy. Well, sort of. At least he wasn't chasing bad guys. The McNasty Brothers were once again in prison and so Melvin decided it was time to invent the world's best-tasting ice cream. After all, it was an unwritten part of the superhero's code to eat snacks when they weren't saving the world.

So ice cream it was. And not just any ice cream...pretzel-flavored ice cream. Melvin had converted his tree house, which usually served as his good guy hideout, into a superhero's laboratory. All around him were sacks of sugar and cartons of milk.

Let's see, Melvin said to himself, 68 cups of sugar, 111 cups of milk. That's 179 cups in all.

Ah...math. When Melvin wasn't saving the world or pounding on bad guys, there was always a good math problem just waiting to be solved.

He mixed up a batch of pretzel-flavored ice cream and spooned some to his pet Hugo. Hugo was a rat, but right now he was a guinea pig.
The rat licked his lips. He twitched his whiskers.

"Squeakity squeak squeak?" Melvin asked Hugo. This either meant, "How does it taste?" or possibly, "Does your belly button itch?" Melvin had once been fluent in gerbil, but he wasn't so sure about rat.

"Squeak," the rat said. This either meant, "This is the best ice creamever," or "Don't quit your day job, mister."

No problem there. Years ago Melvin had been plucked from an orphanage and sent to The Superhero Academy. He was now the superhero in charge of Los Angeles. Along with his superhero assistant, Candace Brinkwater, he kept the peace. No, he wouldn't be giving up his day job, not as long as his town needed him.

Melvin looked around at his hideout-turned-inventer's-lab and decided to clean up. He wasn't giving up on pretzel-flavored ice cream, but he had things to do. First he cleaned up, then he checked his email.

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Dear Melvin,
We need your help. Someone has
been sending us threatening letters.
We don't know who it is. Please come
to our concert tonight, just in case.
Sincerely,
Fred of The Grateful Fred
 
"Holy trouble-is-brewing!" Melvin said. "Someone is out to get The Grateful Fred. I love those guys."

Holy trouble-is-brewing indeed. He did love them. The Grateful Fred was his all-time favorite rock and roll band. Melvin had to get going. The email was a cry for help, and The Superhero's Code told him what to do in such situations. Melvin knew he had to be at the concert. He had to keep the peace. And if he could do so while listening to great tunes, well, all the better.

He turned on the TV so Hugo could watch The Adventures of Thunderman, their favorite show. Thunderman and his assistant, Thunder Thighs, were the second-best superheros Melvin knew.

"Gotta go, Hugo," he said as he dove out the window and--
Crash!
Melvin hardly ever got off the ground in one try. He got to his feet and tried again. "Up, up, and away."
Splat!
"Up, up, and away."
Thud!
"Up, up, and away."
Kabonk!

Finally he was up and flying--on the fifth try. This was par for the course for Melvin Beederman. At least he was flying.

Now if only he could learn how to turn off his x-ray vision. He really hated seeing everyone's underwear. But as he zoomed between the tall buildings of Los Angeles, looking down at the people, that's what he saw--underwear.

Lots of it. Too much of it. In every shape, color, and size. It was nauseating, really. He had to remind himself not to eat before going to work.
 
Copyright 2006 Greg Trine
This text is from an uncorrected proof

Continues...

---

Excerpted from Grateful Fred, The by Trine, Greg Copyright © 2006 by Trine, Greg. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Editorial Reviews

A fun, flighty caper. Slyly sprinkled with borrowings from superhero tales and packed with kid-pleasing yucks, this copiously and comically illustrated tale is sufficiently full of baloney to fly.” —Publishers Weekly

“Trine's fast-paced, humorous new series will capture the hearts of bright new readers.” —Jody Fickes Shapiro, Adventures for Kids, Ventura, CA (from summer 2006 Booksense Children's Picks)

“Trine and Montijo have given readers an appealing superhero and his trusty assistant. These delightfully entertaining adventure stories are a must-have for most libraries.” —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

Gr 2-4-In this third series installment, child superhero Melvin and his assistant Candace are trying to figure out who has it in for the hot new band, The Grateful Fred. When someone sets off a bomb at a concert, it's up to the two kids to find the culprit, a task somewhat hampered by Melvin's difficulty with flying and Candace's refusal to save the world before her math homework is done. Readers learn early on what the bad guy is up to, and the story line follows the hero's and villain's parallel stories until they finally meet. Rather than relying on mystery or action, the book attempts to capture its readers with wit-sometimes more successfully than others. It is funny that Melvin can't turn off his X-ray vision and has to look at everyone's underwear, but overuse of stock phrases such as "faster than a speeding bullet" and "nick of time" wear thin. Sketchy black-and-white cartoons appear frequently throughout. Early chapter-book readers would do better to stick with Bruce Hale's "Chet Gecko" (Harcourt) or Dav Pilkey's "Captain Underpants" (Scholastic) series.-Adrienne Furness, Webster Public Library, NY Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal