Impetuous R., Secret Agent

by Jane Leslie Conly, Bonnie Leick (Illustrator)

Impetuous (Impy) Roach and his pals Shiny and Demo are pests. Or so the humans would have you think. They're young roaches, after all. The adult roaches don't seem to care much about their contributions either--at least not in important matters that concern the fate of their colony. But Pop's Diner, the roaches' only home for generations, is in danger of being shut down because of financial burdens, and Impy, Shiny, and Demo can't help but butt in. It's a good thing they do. The meddling of this tiny, pesky crew may just save the day in the end.

Genres: Fiction, Childrens

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2008

About the author

Daughter of author Robert C. O'Brien.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute

[Fluxbrarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pop’s wife is very ill, Pops can’t pay the bills on his historic jazz club, and he’s going to lose the club. The roaches who live in the club don’t want to move, so they do what they can to help out. The story is told from the viewpoint of the roaches, who can read and write, and have sold their formulas, theories, and achievements to humans (such as Einstein). The idea of those many, many roaches living in Pop’s club is gross, but if you can get past that, the story is kind of cute. It takes a while to tell the 3 main roach characters apart, and overall the story suffers from too many characters and too many plotlines. Fairly predictable, not entirely memorable (I couldn’t remember finishing the book, though I did), and I don’t know whom I’d recommend this to.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun if not great "smart bug" story in which a colony of roaches living in an historic jazz club, rally to help save the business from closing. I liked Masterpiece by Elise Broach better. Loosely connected subplots and minimally developed stereotypical humans being my biggest complaints.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read! Grades 3-6 I enjoyed the little roach characters.
Gave me a different prospective of cockroaches- will maybe not but a delightful story.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

good book about cockroaches

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

A weird book about cockroaches.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

Picked this one up in the dollar bin. That's about all it was worth. I was hoping it would be a cute book I could read to my son someday but it was a pretty lame story.

[Amy]

"A weird book about cockroaches."
Hmm, worth a try xD