From author Adam Rex comes the first book in the Cold Cereal Saga—a hilarious, clever, and action-packed adventure series with an educational hook.
Scottish Play Doe—aka Scott—is used to being a little different. Sometimes he hallucinates things no one else can see. But then one of these hallucinations tries to steal Scott's backpack, and he comes face-to-face with an honest-to-goodness leprechaun named Mick who's on the run from, of all things, the Goodco Cereal Company. With the help of his friends Erno and Emily, Scott and Mick uncover Goodco's sinister plans—and take the first steps in saving the world from the evil cereal company.
Like the Artemis Fowl Series and the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series, the Cold Cereal Saga takes elements of familiar mythology—in this case, Arthurian legend and Irish folklore—and reimagines it in the modern world with a cast of relatable characters and myriad magical beings. The story is told from multiple points of view, and there are dozens of illustrations—including "commercial breaks"—and stories within the story.
Supports the Common Core State Standards
Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
A Parent's Review
By Jana Taylor
I got this for my 8 year old and read it first to see if I think it would be appropriate for him and if he'd like it. My verdict is that a lot of the content would be "over his head", but that he'd appreciate the characters.There is no "bad language", there are two allusions to cuss words but none are spoken. There is some violence there are references to "untimely" deaths, there are some instances where people get guns pointed at them and/or shot at (no one ever gets shot though), and there are some other assorted scary parts but no one gets seriously hurt. There is a part about how one character's mom has an endless parade of "dad's" coming in and out of their lives and I found that part unnecessary and it displeased me greatly. If you want to have a single parent that is one thing, but don't have her be a revolving door!My own feelings on the book were that I personally enjoyed reading it, and at just over 400 pages I was able to do it in an evening and part of the next morning.The story gets moving very quickly out of the gate - important for young readers. It combines every day situations (school interactions for instance) with very whimsical characters and I think that will hold the interest of most young readers. There are a lot of funny lines thrown in for good measure that will appeal to a wide age range. For instance there is a dialogue between two main characters discussing the lax nature of their schools' attitude toward education because February they celebrated "Slacks History Month" which they theorize was due to a typo. This being said, my 8 year old did not get the joke until I explained it to him. So I think some of the humor might be lost on the younger readers.There are also heavy references to Freemasons (who in this story are made into bad guys), which kids may or may not know about. As an adult I know a bit about Masons as most of the men in my family were Masons, so it lends a bit more "richness" to the story... but I'm not sure how it will come across to kids who have no exposure to that, and also the fact that the author makes them out to be sinister when in reality they are quite benign. They also many other examples (to a lesser extent) of things in the real world being brought into this story that I'm not sure kids would necessarily have much exposure to - for instance there are references to the "New Jersey Devil", "King Arthur", "The Hobbit", and you wouldn't have to have any background on those to enjoy the book... but I just wonder if that will be confusing later in life to kids if this is their FIRST introduction to these things? Perhaps I am making too much of it. It is a fictional story book after all.But I felt like the story itself built up well, there was a good flow. I felt like the ending chapters were a little frenetic, a little rushed. I think the author could have done a little bit more character development with Merle earlier on in the book connecting him with Mr. Wilson perhaps, instead of using him mostly towards the end of the book and not giving us much in the way of connections between him and Mr Wilson. I also felt like Emily's character left a little to be desired it felt like she was not "finished" working through her issues and hadn't come to an equilibrium yet.Part of the character development though was because I felt the ending was not completely wrapped up... probably because this is book 1 and there are more to come I would imagine. The episode at hand was cleared up but there were - let's just say some much larger over encompassing issues that were left hanging unresolved. The battle was won but we don't know for sure who has won the war. I guess I can't say more without doing a spoiler.
17 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
A Reader, age 11
By Sarah
(posting this for my 11-year-old son).I'm a fan of the MT Anderson books about Pals in Peril and I thought this one would be funny and weird like that, but it's not really like that. Reading this book, I had a hard time telling what was going on. There were too many things going on at the same time, and people talking, but I couldn't tell where they were. There were a lot of different kinds of creatures in the book, and I didn't know why they were there. I kept trying to read, but finally I gave up. I can't really recommend this book.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.Fey & Frosted Flakes
By Kale
Scott and his friends Emily and Erno find there's more than milk in their morning munchies and those goofy cartoony characters on the breakfast cereal boxes aren't just imaginary mascots in this surreal adventure brought to you by the good folks at Goodco.Sixth-grade becomes a bit strange when Scott and his family have to move to the tiny town of Goodborough, N.J.. The change becomes difficult as Scott starts seeing strange creatures and having migraines. This seems to be the least of his problems when the figments start talking to him and telling stories of stolen magic and bizarre business practices. Along with his new sidekicks Erno and Emily, Scott will start to unravel the secrets of the local cereal company, and uncover a conspiracy by the not so good people at Goodco.Modernity crashes into fairytales like a Coney Island freak show plopped in the middle of Wall Street in Adam Rex's meal of the day, Cold Cereal. It's a strange thought that that Trix-like rabbit is really a Phouka, but believable in an evil genius kind of way. Fans of the fey will appreciate the re-imagined oddities advertisers use to brainwash children into bullying parents to buy their products as real life legends of lore. Cold Cereal is a crazy insane take on the world of fairy. Rex has an uncanny way of grounding his inane ideas of classic folklore with commercialism. Illustrations sprinkled throughout the book add a feeling of finding that coveted toy in the cereal box, while at the same time enhancing the reader's imaginative visuals of this unique world.Author Adam Rex might have gone off the rails a little here and there but his tale of tweens and fey is interesting and different for even the biggest kids, making Cold Cereal a great story time book sure to capture the imagination of children and adults alike.
