Snotlings by Tarryn Mallick || Pick Your Battles, Not Your Nose!

Snotlings

Can you survive the snotpocalpyse?

Jackson Hart loves picking his nose. But when he finds a tiny warrior in his booger, everything turns WEIRD and DANGEROUS! Not only does he have a civilisation of snotlings up his nose . . . one wants revenge.

Mucuszar and his awful germ army have conquered both nostrils and Jackson’s world is next!

Can Jackson and his friends stop the snotpocalypse? Or will Mucuszar’s deadly creation destroy the planet?

Content Tags:

Perfect for readers who want:

• Gross humor about boogers.
• Interesting, surprising world set inside the human body.
• Fun little anthropomorphized pieces of anatomy.
• Fast-paced action.
• Something that’s just fun and enjoyable to read, like brain candy.

Many thanks to the author and Rockstar Book Tours for a copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I know what you’re thinking (probably), which is what I thought when I first saw this book. This doesn’t look like something I’d pick up, yes? You’d be correct. However, this is exactly something one of my young patrons might pick up, so I wanted to give it a chance! It looked exactly like the sort of humor this age group enjoys, even though it’s not my thing.

Snotlings is filled with the sort of humor middle grade readers will love, absolutely packed with action, and manages to sneak in some really neat anatomy lessons, all while building a dangerous, adventurous world inside the humor body.

Despite the humor being booger based and not quite for me, I actually had quite a good time with this book! I enjoyed the world Tarryn Mallick built inside the ‘hooman’ Jackson, which was very unique and filled with danger and adventure! I can see this one being a big hit with the children.

Welcome to the world inside Jackson’s nose. It’s actually . . . kind of cool?

Somehow, Mallick manages to make a world inside the body rich in creatures and action, and I kind of love it. There are a lot of really neat little mentions of anatomy and things in the body, and I think this book would be such a fun, interesting way to introduce that to kids! From the auricle (get it? oracle?) of the ear to the white beasts in the blood, you never quite know what you’re going to find.

Then there’s the snotlings themselves, of course. They’ve had a bit of a rough time, with their loved ones being yanked out of the nostril when Jackson picks his nose, presumed to be dead. It’s hard not to appreciate Crust’s earnestness and heart as he tries to save not only his people but their hooman. It also might be easy to see why someone might want revenge on humans . . . though, admittedly, for completely different reasons than villains usually want revenge on humans!

While a Snotling named Crust is struggling to save his own way of life, his ‘hooman,’ Jackson, is having some problems of his own.

Namely, a mysterious illness is sweeping through humanity, causing them to excrete ridiculous amounts of snot and pick their nose. Sometimes even pick other people’s noses. Gross, right? This is the sort of gross humor that I think kids will absolutely love, even though it’s really not my cup of tea. My 10-year-old daughter picked up the cover and was immediately interested in the idea, so I definitely think it’ll appeal to the age group.

Jackson isn’t quite on his own, though. He forms a group with some unlikely friends, and they each have to contribute to the solution in some pretty unique ways. Like I said, this idea isn’t all that deep, nor are the friendships, but it’s pretty fun. They’re easy to root for, and they do a little growing up over the course of the book, as well as growing together.

There’s nothing particularly deep about this book (other than maybe a nice reminder to not pick your nose!), but what Snotlings really has to offer is some laughs and a whole lot of fun.

Deep literature it is not, but I’d argue that not everything should be that kind of literature (nor would we even want it to be!). Sometimes it’s nice just to read something light that’s silly and makes you laugh. Especially in middle grade. Snotlings is definitely that sort of book.

It’s pretty fast-paced, so it carries right along from one thing to the next, with plenty of action and things happening, not to mention being set in two worlds, technically. I don’t think young readers will get bored with this one, that’s for sure.

You’ve really got to be a fan of booger humor to enjoy this book! Which I’m not particularly . . . but I know a lot of middle grade readers who are!

This is one of those weird factors where any sort of potty or ick humor isn’t really my thing, personally, as an old, sophisticated, proper librarian (stop snickering! I can hear you!). No poop, fart, butt, booger jokes for me, please.

So why did I knowingly and willingly read this book? Because a lot of my young patrons absolutely love this stuff. (I suspect young me probably did, too, before she knew the joy of puns and Dad humor.) So while this review is entirely my opinion about this book, I didn’t factor in the gross factor, because that’s going to be so subjective from person to person.

If you know right off the bat that you don’t like gross humor, do yourself a favor and give this book a pass. It’s not for you. (Not everything is, and that’s okay.) But I promise you, there will be readers out there who will get a hoot out of this!

This is a uniquely librarian complaint, buuuut . . . there’s a swearword. Just one. One lone ‘badass’ lurking two-thirds of the way through the book. Whyyyy?!

This had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the rating, but this is one of my weird librarian considerations, so bear with me for a minute while I explain. *puts librarian hat on and adjusts it hoitily*

Here’s the thing when it comes to middle grade from a librarian perspective: either swear or don’t, but commit either way it goes. I get asked a lot at my library for clean middle grade, and because of one teensy little swearword, this book no longer qualifies. Even though, by all means, it really should. It’s written in a way that is clean (despite all the boogers! haha) other than the one word, which really could’ve been cleaned up and still had the same meaning.

Again, doesn’t factor into the rating, but I just had to say it!

(I will also say that while I am perfectly fine with my kid reading books with swearing . . . and let’s be honest, she’ll probably read this because she’s got a thing for gross books . . . I also 100% respect other parents’ rights to raise their kids however they’d like. As a librarian, my job is to provide them with what they ask for, not pass judgment.)

1 winner will receive a SNOTLINGS Book Box with fun goodies and finished copy of SNOTLINGS, US Only.

Week One

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Week Four

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