No More Mr. Mice Guy (2) (My Mad Scientist Mom)

No More Mr. Mice Guy (2) (My Mad Scientist Mom)

Ari helps a neighbor who accidentally gets shrunk by Ari’s mom’s latest invention in this second book in the My Mad Scientist Mom chapter book series from acclaimed author-illustrator Jarrett Lerner. Ari’s life is filled with school, video games, and his pet turtle, Fred: pretty run-of-the mill stuff. But not anywhere near run-of-the-mill is Ari’s mom, who’s a mad scientist. That’s right, a MAD scientist. Sure, she strives to make people’s lives better with her inventions, especially at home. But all of Mom’s inventions seem to go just the slightest bit off kilter. His mom puts a new invention to the test to help clean up the clutter in their house: a magnimizer, which can shrink or enlarge anything! Pretty amazing, right? Well, not if you happen to be Mr. Jakes, their neighbor who comes face to face with this gizmo and becomes the size of a cockroach—and a potential tasty morsel for the resident basement mouse! Can Ari save the day and teeny-weeny Mr. Jakes? Jarrett Lerner is the award-winning creator of more than a dozen books for kids, including the EngiNerds series of middle grade novels, the Geeger the Robot series of early chapter books, the Hunger Heroes series of graphic chapter books, two activity books, the illustrated novel in verse A Work in Progress , and the Nat the Cat series of early readers. You can find him online at JarrettLerner.com and on X and Instagram at @Jarrett_Lerner. He lives with his wife and daughters in Massachusetts. Chapter One   MOST KIDS MY AGE SLEEP in on the weekends. They wake up late, hours after they do on school days, then laze around the house in their pajamas, watching TV and eating cereal.   That, at least, is how I imagine it is for most kids. I wouldn’t really know, since I’m not most kids. And mostly that’s because of my mom, who is… Well, she’s a   MAD SCIENTIST!     But if that’s the sort of mad scientist you’re picturing, I’ve got news for you. You’re a bit mistaken. Mom? She’s more like this :   MAD SCIENTIST!     Though that hasn’t prevented her from blowing up our refrigerator, causing a lightning storm in our living room, or making a homemade “time portal” and then accidentally sending the two of us (plus my pet turtle, Fred) about seventy million years back in time.   But back to sleeping in. Or not sleeping in, in my case.   On the morning in question I was woken up bright and early by a bunch of bangs and clatters. But something about these particular bangs and clatters seemed strange. It wasn’t the usual racket coming from down in the basement, a space which Mom quickly converted into her laboratory once we moved to this new town and into this new house a few months ago. These bangs and clatters seemed to be coming from somewhere closer. From the kitchen —a room that Mom hardly ever spent time in (except for that day when she blew up the fridge, obviously).   Was my mom, I wondered, attempting to cook something?   I tossed aside my sheets and leapt out of bed. Then, after scooping Fred up out of his terrarium, I raced out of my bedroom and headed for the kitchen. Because my mom? Let’s just say I trust her to operate a time portal way more than I do a frying pan.