The Fantastic Freeze Ray: A Branches Book

K-Gr 3–Move over, good guys, this is villain school! In this new series, Vicky von Evil dreams of being a super-baddie. The only problem? Her parents and brother are too nice, and their niceness might be rubbing off on her. When Vicky and her pal Will Wickedson hear about a special school for supervillains in training, Vicky is elated—until she learns that the school is highly selective, accepting only the top baddies in the world. With a lot of hard work and Will’s support, can Vicky manage to unlock her inner villain and earn a spot at the school? Lourenço’s full-color illustrations are engaging, and the ratio of text to art makes this book feel less overwhelming for kids ready to take the jump up from early readers. However, because of the context of the story, there are a fair number of vocabulary words that younger readers may not be able to decode independently, such as “villain,” “radioactive,” “wicked,” “distraction,” and” uninterested”). Vicky is white, Will is Black, and secondary characters have a diverse range of skin tones.