SPLOINK! Peanut Butter and Jelly Aliens--A Zombie Culinary Tale by Joe McGee

QUIRKVILLE WAS A QUIET LITTLE TOWN, THE KIND OF PLACE WHERE THE PEOPLE AND ZOMBIES LIVED IN PEACE.

It wasn't always so. When the Zombies first invaded Quirkville, they shambled through the heretofore quiet streets, arms stretched before them--in search of (YIKES!) brains. But one young zombie--Reginald--was a more adventurous eater, one who actually craved exotic food, namely Abigail Zink's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and soon all the zombie invaders turn into PB and J fanciers. Now at lunchtime the busy streets of Quirkville are filled with various people and zombies, all happily in search of that classic sandwich.

But now there are new invaders in Quirkville, a small squadron of space aliens equipped with blasters, and all are clearly looking for lunch in all the wrong places!

But what?

"PIZZA?" SAID REGINALD, OFFERING THE ALIEN A TASTE OF HIS SLICE.

HIS ANTENNAE QUIVERED AND HIS TENTACLES SHOOK. HE DIDN'T LOOK HAPPY!

BRAZZAT! SPLAT!

Firing their blasters, the aliens storm through the town. At the Downtown Grill Greta hastens to flip grilled cheese sandwiches for them, but the aliens fire back with cosmic grape jelly. Icky-sticky!

SPLOINK! SPLOINK! they demand! What can they want!

It's Abigail and Reginald to the rescue, as they figure out that the aliens are there to find the missing ingredients they need to go with their cosmic grape jelly, in Joe McGee's latest, Peanut Butter & Jelly Aliens: A Zombie Culinary Tale (Abrams Books, 2017). Humans and zombies UNITE in serving up the necessities for Quirkville's signature sandwich at the newly christened SPLOINK CAFE, and again all is well in Quirkville.

It's a silly story, as befits one with kids, zombies, aliens, and sticky sandwiches, in this sequel to McGee's 2015 hit, Peanut Butter & Brains: A Zombie Culinary Tale (review here). As in the first book, author McGee gets a major culinary and artistic assist from illustrator Charles Santoso, whose comic drawings offer more fun with food for the primary reader. Kids who favor fantasy stories about aliens and zombies may want to get their sticky PB and J fingers on this one.