{"id":1435,"date":"2019-04-11T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T21:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1435"},"modified":"2019-03-23T10:42:04","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T16:42:04","slug":"book-ben-braver-and-the-incredible-exploding-kid-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/11\/book-ben-braver-and-the-incredible-exploding-kid-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BenBen Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid<\/u><\/strong>
\nYear: 2019
\nAuthor: Marcus Emerson
\nLength: 336 pages<\/p>\n

***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY***<\/p>\n

Once again, I seem to have jumped in on the second book of a series. Fortunately, there was plenty of exposition detailing the events of The Super Life of Ben Braver<\/em>. Maybe a little too much exposition. This sequel took a little long getting to its own story because of this, along with a bit of heavy-handed foreshadowing as well. Regardless of its slow start, Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid<\/em> is a pretty standard middle-grade book that calls upon the success of the superhero genre to package a lesson about pride between action set pieces.<\/p>\n

While there are some parallels between the X-Men<\/em> series, I feel the main character\u2019s arc is perhaps a little more similar to early My Hero Academia<\/em>. Plus, it wouldn\u2019t be a middle-grade story without a bit of a Harry Potter<\/em> feel to it as well (i.e., a unique main character with a semi-bumbling male friend and an incredibly smart female friend). At the very least, I found the illustrations sprinkled throughout to be well done. They certainly contributed to the comic book hybrid feel of the story, which is probably what draws the X-Men <\/em>comparisons.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t fault this book too much for its heavy-handed approach toward the main character\u2019s social faux pas<\/em> since this book is basically for children. That being said, I did find some of the lore and intricacies of the greater story arc to be perhaps a little elaborate. I\u2019m sure if I\u2019d read the first book, this would be less so, but it still seems slightly overcomplicated at times. In the end, I liked some of the unique (if not sometimes gross) superpowers of these kids, and I\u2019d recommend this series for any children who might want to make the jump from comic books to chapter books, and vice versa.<\/p>\n

A comic book\/chapter book hybrid with a semi-standard take on superheroes, I give Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid<\/em> 3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid Year: 2019 Author: Marcus Emerson Length: 336 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** Once again, I seem to have jumped in on the second book of a series. Fortunately, there was plenty of exposition detailing the events of The Super Life of Ben Braver. Maybe a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,54],"tags":[1728,1725,1726,55,97,339,308,981,1729,1730,8,39,1727,38],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-book","tag-and-the-incredible-exploding-kid","tag-ben-braver","tag-ben-braver-and-the-incredible-exploding-kid","tag-book","tag-giveaway","tag-goodreads","tag-goodreads-giveaway","tag-harry-potter","tag-marcus-emerson","tag-my-hero-academia","tag-review","tag-superhero","tag-the-super-life-of-ben-braver","tag-x-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1444,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions\/1444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}