Blazing Ahead! Book

Martin Bridge returns with a third book of slice-of-life adventures in the daily life of an eight-year-old boy.

Children's Literature

This is a fun chapter book for boys and girls! In "Relish," the first of two stories, Martin Bridge and his Junior Badger troop head into the woods to work on their camping badges. A variety of hilarity ensues, involving practical jokes, slime, scotch tape sculptures, and Morse code. In "Lightning Bolts," Martin learns to love his dad's rusty old lawnmower for the things it helps his dad teach him. While both stories involve lessons about relating to family and friends and about navigating pre-adolescence, neither is preachy. Joseph Kelly's illustrations add just the right touch of humor and interest. Kelly's prose works well as a read-aloud-together book or a textured story for new chapter-book readers. The book even includes a recipe for slime and instructions for sending your own secret Morse code signals. This is the third Martin Bridge collaboration from Kerrin and Kelly, and this reviewer is hooked.