Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot vs the Mecha-Monkeys from Mars: No. 4

Ricky Ricotta and his Mighty Robot are in big trouble. After crashing the Ricotta family mini-van while using it as a skateboard, they have to earn some money quickly to pay for repairs. While they're thinking how on EARTH they are going to come up with the money...on Mars, mean Major Monkey is making plans to enslave mousekind! Major Monkey knows that the first thing he must do is get rid of that robot. Major Monkey tricks the robot into going to Mars. Now it's up to Ricky to rescue his robot and keep Major Monkey from menacing mankind.

Whoops! When Ricky offers his gigantic robot friend his parents' minivan as a skateboard substitute, neither mouse nor robot considers the consequences. Sure enough, the skateboarders wipe out, and the van is squashed. Now it's up to the "boys" to earn some money to pay for the damage. "Meanwhile, about 35 million miles away on the planet Mars, there lived a mean little monkey who was hatching an evil plan." Good thing for Ricky and Robot, because, well, one intergalactic battle leads to another, and pretty soon these two have earned themselves a brand-new rocket-powered minivan from the general of the Squeakyville Air and Space Association, in gratitude for saving Earth from Major Monkey and his mecha-monkeys.

Young readers will be pleased as punch to see this latest title in Dav Pilkey's series, which includes Ricky Ricotta's Giant Robot vs. the Mutant Mosquitoes from Mercury and Ricky Ricotta's Giant Robot vs. the Voodoo Vultures from Venus, all illustrated with Martin Ontiveros's funny black-and-white drawings. (Ages 5 to 10) --Emilie Coulter