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Summary
Summary
In this inventive, fast-paced novel, New York Times bestselling and Printz Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi takes on hard-hitting themes--from food safety to racism and immigration--and creates a zany, grand-slam adventure that will get kids thinking about where their food comes from.
The zombie apocalypse begins on the day Rabi, Miguel, and Joe are practicing baseball near their town's local meatpacking plant and nearly get knocked out by a really big stink. Little do they know the plant's toxic cattle feed is turning cows into flesh-craving monsters The boys decide to launch a stealth investigation into the plant's dangerous practices, unknowingly discovering a greedy corporation's plot to look the other way as tainted meat is sold to thousands all over the country. With no grownups left they can trust, Rabi and his friends will have to grab their bats to protect themselves (and a few of their enemies) if they want to stay alive...and maybe even save the world.
Author Notes
Paolo Bacigalupi won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards for his debut novel, The Windup Girl, which was published in 2009. His short story collection Pump Six and Other Stories was a 2008 Locus Award winner for Best Collection and his young adult novel Ship Breaker won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and was finalist for the National Book Award. His work has also appeared in High Country News, Salon.com, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When his friend Miguel's family is deported, young Rabi Chatterjee-Jones uncovers a conspiracy at Milrow Meat Solutions, the small town's local meatpacking plant, that has him and his friends dodging zombies and clashing with corporate lawyers in an effort to save the world. While it may seem like a stretch, there's an antifactory farming slant to this hilarious story from Bacigalupi, which is adroitly narrated by Malhotra. Throughout, the reader's pacing is superb and his comic timing perfect. Malhotra's characterization are rich and complex-despite the fact that this may seem a silly comedy-horror mash-up-and his spirited delivery of Bacigalupi's prose brings more to the table than the book's title may imply, including some commentary about the meatpacking industry. Ages 8-12. A Little, Brown hardcover. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
After a rotting smell disrupts baseball practice, Rabi, Miguel, and Joe investigate strange occurrences near a meatpacking plant. Infected cows, tainted meat, and deplorable working conditions lead to a full-blown zombie uprising in the small town of Milrow. Bacigalupi's scathing commentary on food safety and corrupt big business elevates this comedic novel without forcing the issues. Readers will cheer for the underdogs. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Printz-winning Bacigalupi writing a middle-grade zombie novel? Yes, it really happened, and yes, it's pretty darn good. Milrow Meats, the meat-packing plant in Delbe, Iowa, is up to something. Pals Rabi, Miguel, and Joe can tell from the ungodly stink, the anxious behavior of the Mexicans who work there, and oh yeah their zombified Little League coach, who tries to nosh their brains. Further sleuthing reveals that SuperGrow growth supplement is being fed to the cows, creating undead bovines that, in turn, create zombie burgers. And what happens when folks start snarfing those burgers? Though the plot synopsis recalls such gleeful splatter fests as John Kloepfer's Zombie Chasers series, in Bacigalupi's hands it feels closer to Walter Dean Myers' Cruisers series, with much of the story delving into issues often overlooked in youth fiction: the capricious treatment of immigrant workers, the absence of options for the poor, and the questionable record of the USDA. Simultaneously smart, funny, and icky, this book asks a tough question: Is it worth looking the other way in order to save yourself? HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The sheer improbability of a big-name author delivering a project like this should generate a strong Venn diagram of commercial and critical interest.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Zombie baseball sounds like it could be a cheap horror show full of bad effects and too much gore. However, in the hands of Bacigalupi, this story (Little, Brown, 2013) becomes much, much more. Best friends Rabi, Miguel, and Joe first realize something in their town of Delbe, Iowa, is terribly wrong when they head out to the park near the Milrow Meats plant and are driven back by a dreadful smell. Then their baseball coach attempts to eat them while moaning, "Brainssss.." Trying to figure out what is happening, the boys discover that Milrow Meats is feeding their cows SuperGrow growth supplement which is turning them into undead creatures that then become "zombie burgers." Sunil Malhotra does an excellent job of voicing Rabi's first-person narration. Each of the middle-school friends has a distinctive voice, making the story easy to follow. Malhotra also maintains the action and fast pace of the zombie tale while still nicely capturing the quieter moments between the friends as they deal with their personal issues. While the story has plenty of action and a good dose of gore, Bacigalupi also tackles larger societal issues including bullying, immigration, racism, and the sometimes questionable oversights of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.-Deanna Romriell, Salt Lake City Public Library, UT (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle meets Left for Dead/The Walking Dead/Shaun of the Dead in a high-energy, high-humor look at the zombie apocalypse, complete with baseball (rather than cricket) bats. The wholesome-seeming Iowa cornfields are a perfect setting for the emergence of ghastly anomalies: flesh-eating cows and baseball-coach zombies. The narrator hero, Rabi (for Rabindranath), and his youth baseball teammates and friends, Miguel and Joe, discover by chance that all is not well with their small town's principal industry: the Milrow corporation's giant feedlot and meat-production and -packing facility. The ponds of cow poo and crammed quarters for the animals are described in gaggingly smelly detail, and the bone-breaking, bloody, flesh-smashing encounters with the zombies have a high gross-out factor. The zombie cows and zombie humans who emerge from the muck are apparently a product of the food supply gone cuckoo in service of big-money profits with little concern for the end result. It's up to Rabi and his pals to try to prove what's going on--and to survive the corporation's efforts to silence them. Much as Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker (2010) was a clarion call to action against climate change, here's a signal alert to young teens to think about what they eat, while the considerable appeal of the characters and plot defies any preachiness. Not for the faint of heart or stomach (or maybe of any parts) but sure to be appreciated by middle school zombie cognoscenti. (Fiction. 11-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.