Author: Aaron Reynolds
Illustrator: Cam Kendell
© Date: 2022
Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Pages: 272
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: Many – most page layouts have an illustration
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12
Bonus Activities at End of Book: Behind the scenes sketches with Cam Kendell, also mentions a game that can be downloaded
Summary from Book: A quest awaits Fart, Pan, Moxie and TickTock high up in the freezing Frostflung Mountains. There, they must go knee-deep in their search to find a magical object…hidden in a giant pile of dragon poop.
It sure stinks, but they’re not alone. The heroes team up with a valiant knight and her cheeky steed to fight yetis, fend off fearsome mushrooms, and solve mind-bending riddles. But their biggest challenge yet? Surviving the test of friendship before their quest goes bottoms up.
Page Pig Thoughts: Admittedly, I still feel a little weird reading a book with this title, but not as guilty as my first Fart Quest read (see Fart Quest: Barf of the Bedazzler review here). The imaginative story kept me wondering what would happen, and the illustrations added their own entertainment. I loved some of the new character types presented in this book; snomes, shroomies, and spoonicorns, woohoo! This was another delightful read that will make me request another Fart Quest from the library, maybe another one will answer my question of what in the world a bassoonicorn would look like and have as a magical ability. While the bassoonicorn was merely a brief blip on an illustration caption, there is plenty of content to keep an imagination moving…and giggling.
Family Unit: Seems like the family units would have been clear in the first book.
- Fart, the main character, somehow met his friends and battle companions, Moxie and Pan, at Krakentop Academy for Heroes. They had left the academy and were following their respective masters for wilderness training. Each of their masters died when they were vaporized by goblin magic in an attack gone horribly wrong. The Threesome decide not to return to the academy in shame and disgrace. So the trio goes out into the world to try heroic adventuring on their own.
- Fart mentions that he got kicked out of his family.
- Ticktock is a phibling that the trio already seemingly met in book one. The other phiblings made him leave their village because he liked to invent things and did not like being in muck. He has been living and working for Kevin, the mage sending the adventuring trio out searching for items. Kevin gets angry that TickTock plans to go adventure with his friends again because that will mean TickTock will not be making his breakfast. So Kevin tells TickTock that he doesn’t need to come back.
- This book discusses the details of Pan’s mother dying when Pan was young.
- Seraphim seems to be this amazingly noble knight that becomes fast friends with Pan and Moxie, leaving Fart to feel left out on some of his favorite activities with Pan and Moxie. Seraphim turns out to be a thief who stole a knight’s armor. She is eaten by the dragon at the end of the story.
- Sparkles is the egotistical, snarky spoonicorn that travels with Seraphim. After getting to know Sparkles in the story, I now have a hard time imagining that spoonicorn being the steed of Seraphim in their entrance scene. Sparkles is definitely her own self. Fart determines that one of Sparkles’s magical abilities is making hurtful comments, which usually seem directed at Fart.
- Knock-Knock is a cute snome (snow gnome) with amazing abilities with making mechanical things. She is sent with the adventurers to retrieve an item for Boss-King Grease-Ratchet. Past the Boss-King, snome family units were not mentioned.
Conflict/Social Issues:
- Fart is struggling because Seraphim takes his place on his usual shared activities with Pan and Moxie. Pan also shares the story of her mother’s death with Seraphim before she tells Fart, which confuses him and makes him feel like an outsider.
- Fart struggles with the unkind comments that Sparkles keeps directing his way.
Positive Items:
- We see the strength of good friendships, Fart and Moxie agree to go on the dragon’s dookie quest because Pan wants to go. The quest reward of getting to talk with her long since dead mother one last time entices Pan to go on the quest. Fart and Moxie know that is important to Pan. Even when they think that they will die on the quest, Fart and Moxie never once lament that they only agreed to go because Pan wanted to.
- We see the trust that can be built in a friendship. Even after Fart had felt left out by Pan and Moxie, they all worked together to slay the dragon. Pan and Moxie go along with Fart’s plan based on pure trust, even though they had no idea how he planned to outsmart the dragon.
- We see the value of good friendship choices. Seraphim seemed like a good friend to Pan and Moxie, until she stole some of the dragon’s treasure and planned to leave them behind to die by dragon. Sparkles the spoonicorn had planned to go with Seraphim until Seraphim threatened Sparkles with a dagger and said that no hands meant no way to come along. Even though Sparkles had double crossed Fart, Moxie, and Pan; they still worked to save Sparkles from the dragon.
Items of Interest:
- Yes, there is potty humor. The main character, Fart, can cast a flatulence spell that can turn him into a gassy fart and float around.
- There are many different words used to describe poo. All of them, even the four letter ones, are child appropriate. Yes, poop, dung, and caca are four letter words…
- The book starts out with Pan, Moxie, and Fart trying to get a Water Weirdo out of the toilet at an Inn. The Water Weirdo bites people’s butts when they sit on the toilet.
- Some of the characters could be kinda scary. The yeti is muscle laden, magic proof, and a tad scary.
- The dragon burns and eats people. The dragon drove the snomes (snow gnomes) out of their home.
- After leaving Fart, Moxie, Pan, and even Sparkles behind to be killed by the dragon, Seraphim the thief gets eaten by the dragon. Seraphim was the only one eaten by the dragon.
- Seraphim threatens Sparkles with a dagger.
- As the characters move through their quest, some of their enemies do die. This is not the kind of story where the bad guys are vanquished by magic that returns them to some other place, weapons are used and bad guys die. Not gory, gruesome deaths; but Seraphim being eaten by a dragon is definitely dying, particularly when Seraphim’s belongings are found in the dragon’s poop.
- The death story of Pan’s mother, Cypress, was told. Cypress died due to a pranking mage/kid causing her an attention lapse, so she was eaten by a manticore.
- The snome (snow gnome) history was mentioned. After the snomes were driven out of their home by the dragon, they were left on the snowy mountainside to find food and shelter while fending off yetis and goblins.
- The book has a gaming vibe with achievement scrolls and experience points awarded to the questing characters. If I knew anything about Dungeons and Dragons, maybe I would see more of a connection. For me, achievement scrolls were just a fun addition.
Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):
- Fart Quest (Book 1) [Review]
- Fart Quest: The Barf of the Bedazzler (Book 2) [Review]
- Fart Quest: The Troll’s Toe Cheese (Book 4) [Review]
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