Bibliography
Krosoczka, J. J. 2009. Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780375846830.
Plot Summary
A school’s lunch lady grows suspicious of a new substitute teacher that seems more strict and abrupt than past substitutes. This curiosity leads her to work with her assistant in order to find out more about this strange new character. Meanwhile, Hector, Dee, and Terrence, three students of this same school, grow curious of the life the lunch lady and the assistant live outside of the school. After school, as Lunch Lady follows the mysterious substitute to investigate who this person is, her assistant investigates his hair sample while the three students decide to follow Lunch Lady. Their pursuit comes to an end when Lunch Lady enters a corporation building and discovers that the mysterious substitute is a robot after all. She then finds the real culprit, another teacher of the same school named Mr. Edison, who plans to replace all teachers with strict cyborg substitutes so that he may finally win Teacher of the Year. The kids then show up to the scene and witness Lunch Lady’s secret superhero fighting powers and discover the real reason behind their mean substitute.
Critical Analysis
This book takes a comic book-style, superhero story and creates a lighthearted novel for children, though it also creates a graphic novel for all ages. It is clear that the novel is lighthearted by nature, with goofy-looking characters, simplistic drawings, and easy-to-read dialogue. There are many aspects of this book that create this casual read for children and readers of all ages. The illustrations are drawn with not a lot of details, and this works well with some of the goofy-looking characters, such as Lunch Lady’s assistant with her crazy-looking eyes. Also, the casualness of the story is further shown by the blatant indicators of the various gadgets that Lunch Lady uses throughout the story for the reader, such as the arrows that point at and give the names to the gadgets. For example, when Lunch Lady sneaks up on the ceiling when the cyborg substitute enters the classroom, the arrows point to her gloves, reading “Robber Glove Suction Cups.” Lastly, some of the dialogue is intentionally humorous, such as when Lunch Lady screams “Cauliflower!” when surprised by the cyborgs, or the chicken nugget bombs she throws at the cyborgs. This helps in keeping the lighthearted tone of the book that readers of any age can laugh at and enjoy.
Review Excerpt(s)
- Kirkus Review: "Filled with goofy puns and greyscale art with cherry yellow accents, this is a delightfully fun escapist read" (May 20, 2010).
Connections
- Students can create their own short comic about their everyday life (waking up, going to school, etc.)
- Students can create their own short comic book about a worker in their school and imagine the type of life that they live.
- Students can create their own short comic of imaging living their life differently.
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