Brock the croc: Make it snappy! by Adrian Beck and Dean Rankine

Brock the croc and his friends live happily in Saltbush swamp having managed to save it from destruction in the first story in this series called Bite Me!  Brock loves to party, ride his motorbike and be the centre of attention, but he is finding that being a leader can be hard when the rest of his swamp buddies don’t always listen to him. Mayor Grunter is more determined than ever to destroy the swamp to build on it and has come up with an evil scheme to do it using robots.  But when her small robots arrive at the swamp its inhabitants are thrilled to have these helpful, friendly bots to do their bidding.  Brock is not so sure they are what they seem and when they join to form a monster robot called Gruntzilla he must do his best to figure out a way to overcome the furious giant and save their home once again.

These books are a graphic novel style with large black and white illustrations, bold highlighted words, speech bubbles and a fast-paced storyline.  It contains some toilet humour that will make readers laugh out loud but has an underlying theme of protecting the environment and preventing unnecessary development which destroys habitats of native animals. It will appeal to reluctant readers and those trying their first chapter books.

Themes: Crocodiles, Robots, Leadership, Swamps.

Gabrielle Anderson