The second fun and fantastical early chapter book about a girl living in Holland and a piece of popcorn that comes to life. The girl has two dads, but that’s happily incidental to the tale. In this volume, Ellis and Popcorn Bob have become friends, despite Bob’s cranky personality. Bob is helping Ellis smuggle popcorn into her school for all the students after the administration bans it for being unhealthy. Bob must go undercover to discover just how the administrators plan to enforce their rule. But Bob’s touchiness and insatiable hunger threaten to reveal the secret of his existence, while minions of Popcorn & Co., the American company whose illegal growing formula brought Bob into being, are flying in to track him down. Will Ellis be able to keep him safe?
This is best read after the first book, Popcorn Bob, but is a fun and worthwhile sequel. As I said about the first volume, there’s a sort of inspired silliness here that I like, and a narrative pace that keeps the action moving. Van der Linden’s pencil drawings, which sometimes carry bits of dialog, also make this a great transition book for children not quite ready for all-text middle grade books. It would also make a fun read-aloud for slightly younger children. Ellis and her dads are all White; her best friend has darker skin, and other children in her class are of various skin tones.
There’s a light theme about friendship, too, although the overall intent seems more to entertain than to convey moral lessons. That’s fine; pure entertainment has value, too—and the complete non-issue of the two dads has value of its own. It’s actually rather refreshing to read an LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ book that isn’t weighty with Deep Messages. Sometimes we just want to be amused.
Translated from the Dutch by Nancy Forest-Flier.
