By Jarrett J. Krosoczka
The school lunch lady is secretly a crime-fighter, and every one of her gadgets is made out of kitchen stuff.
Nobody at school pays the lunch lady any mind. Nobody notices that once the last tray is served she becomes a costumed crime-fighter, armed with a spork phone and hairnet grappling hooks she cooks up in a secret lab under the cafeteria. When a creepy new substitute teacher turns out to be a robot in disguise, the Lunch Lady and her sidekick Betty leap into action, while three nosy children start trailing her to find out what she's really up to.
A child who loved Captain Underpants for its mix of comics, silliness, and a grown-up secretly leading a double life will slide straight into this. It's a true graphic novel, so the text never piles up, the jokes come from puns and kitchen gadgets instead of a big vocabulary, and there's a long series behind it to keep a hooked reader going.