• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2023 January #1
  Rubin follows up The Ice Cream Machine (2022) with a second gathering of original stories, each with several pictures by different up-and-coming illustrators. Though varied in plot and style, each is shared and spun from the same title in earnest of Rubin's message to young prospective writers that "inspiration is everywhere." The tone fluctuates even more than in the previous outing: there's a hilarious field trip that takes readers to an orbiting amusement park shaped like a human body (which offers a whole new definition for full moon), and a gruesome, twisty whodunit that leads to a character-driven bildungsroman about a temperamental Canadian superhero's journey to mature human. Best of the lot is a thrilling and poignant circus tale that recounts the career of a blind high-wire artist. The author closes with an invitation to his audience to take his title and run with it themselves, while perhaps checking out the instructional videos on his website. Pedagogical purposes notwithstanding, there's more than enough entertainment value to light the fuses of readerly—as well as writerly—readers. Grades 5-7. Copyright 2023 Booklist Reviews.

Adam Rubin is the author of a dozen critically acclaimed picture books, which have sold more than five million copies combined. They include Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, High Five, Gladys the Magic Chicken, Secret Pizza Party, Robo-Sauce, the Those Darn Squirrels trilogy, and El Chupacabras, which won the Texas Bluebonnet Award. Publishers Weekly called his #1 New York Times bestselling story collection The Ice Cream Machine a "madcap middle grade debut." Visit Adam online at adamrubinhasawebsite.com and follow him on Twitter @rubingo.