In their first adventure, Nick and Tesla rescued a girl from her kidnappers and managed to wiggle out of those same kidnappers’ clutches themselves. Now they need to help a friend find a stolen mint-condition comic book.
Still spending the summer with their mad scientist uncle, Nick and Tesla are in the basement lab when the story opens. Each of them is making a volcano but with different things. Uncle Newt is down there with them. He is working on making a compost-fueled vacuum cleaner. Yes, that is as gross as it sounds. He is making it out of a leaf blower and putrid bananas. His vacuum cleaner explodes before either of the kids’ volcanoes.
To get away from the putrid smell of the exploding vacuum cleaner, Uncle Newt offers to take them out to eat, and they jump on it. When they get to where they are going to eat, through the window they see a robot twirling pizza dough. This makes them want to build their own robots. A side trip to the Wonder Hut is in order before eating so they can buy supplies. It is there that their uncle falls in love.
Back home, Nick and Tesla build their robots and are outside testing them when their friend, DeMarco, shows up. He yells out for them to follow him because there is an emergency. He takes them to the comic book shop that his family owns. They had obtained a mint-condition copy of a comic book that would bring them lots of money and save their failing business, but it has been stolen. And DeMarco wants Nick and Tesla to find this missing comic.
I had my own ideas about who took the comic, and they changed as I read more of the book. I didn’t quite have it figured out though.
While figuring out who stole the comic, Nick and Tesla make several robots. Detailed instructions on how to build each of them is included in the book.
This was a fun book to read, but it didn’t hold my attention as well as the first book in the series did. I do wish these books had been around many years ago when I homeschooled my children. They would have loved reading them. They would have insisted on making every one of the gadgets.
I was sent a copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. If you wish to purchase your own copy, please click on the Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: Nick and Tesla’s Robot Army Rampage
Recommended Article: Nick and Tesla’s High-Voltage Danger Lab – a Review
Favorite Sentences:
Uncle Newt was the kind of man who needed to be reminded that it’s a good idea to leave when a vacuum cleaner is about to explode.
It smelled like a hundred burned banana cream pies sitting in the sun at the country dump.
The place was cramped and dark and smelled like mildew and an old man’s armpits, but that didn’t matter.
When they got back to the house, they found that the smoke had cleared and the place smelled only a little like a rotten banana muffing burning in a campfire.
About the Authors:
“Science Bob” Pflugfelder is an award-winning elementary school science teacher. His fun and informative approach to science has led to many television appearances. Article on Bob’s experiements have appeared in magazines such as Nickelodeon and Popular Science. He makes his home in Watertown, Massassachusetts.
Steve Hockensmith is the author of the Edgar-nominated Holmes on the Range mystery series. Another book he has written is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. About forty minutes away from Half Moon Bay, California is where he lives with his wife and two children.
