My Life as a Walrus Whoopee Cushion

January 1, 2000
Gr 4-6-Wally McDoogle is back with his pals Opera and Wall Street for another lunatic adventure and a lesson on the evils of greed. Having decided to buy a ticket for the Gazillion Dollar Lotto, the trio is disappointed to learn that they are too young to make the purchase. Then they run into a man from an earlier book in the series who sells them one of his tickets. When it holds the winning numbers, the villainous Big Lug and his companions demand its return. Wally is unable to comply, since he has lost the ticket at the zoo. This sets the stage for a break-in to recover the missing item from the monkey cage. Before the night is over, Wally ends up under a walrus who eats the last bits of the ticket. Woven into all of this are installments from the superhero story that Wally is writing. Nothing in the book makes a whole lot of sense, and it's not particularly amusing. It also seems a little out of place, in a series that intends to teach some lessons about values, to have the hero and his friends breaking into the zoo after-hours. Also, although Wally says he's learned his lesson ("loving money only leads to trouble"), readers are more likely to remember the improbable scrapes he gets into. Hardly a winning ticket.-Elaine Fort Weischedel, Turner Free Library, Randolph, MA

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