Mia Mayhem Rides the Waves

Mia Mayhem #11

by Kara West, Leeza Hernandez (Illustrator)

Mia goes on a super surfing family vacation in this eleventh adventure of the Mia Mayhem chapter book series!

With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, the Mia Mayhem chapter books are perfect for emerging readers.

Genres: Superheroes, Fantasy, Childrens

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2021

Reviews

[Darla · Rating 4 out of 5]

All caught up on series like The Princess In Black? Watched The Incredibles and its sequel way too many times? Try this series about Mia Mayhem and her superhero family. The book is perfect for kids who are reading Chapter Books and like lots of pictures. This one includes some great animal interactions as well as beach cleanup. My favorite character is Mia's dad. He can talk to animals!
There are currently twelve books in the series so you will not run out of Mia Mayhem books too soon.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cute, fun series and one of my eight-year-old son’s current favorites! It’s kind of an X-Men meets “The Incredibles” with a hint of Harry Potter. Mia gets a letter in the mail informing her she is a superhero – which explains why so many odd things keep happening to her and why she causes so much mayhem without meaning to – and her parents are also superheroes! Mia is enrolled in the Program for In Training Superheroes (aka the PITS) and begins to learn various superhero skills. She goes to the PITS after her regular school gets out and the only non-superhero to know her secret is her best friend, Eddie, who is really into building things like cool robots. I like that this series presents a lot of the fun and excitement that comes with superhero stories without the “bad guys” storylines. The obstacles to overcome are more suitable for these early elementary readers, nothing evil or sinister. The illustration style is a lot of fun, with comic-book elements like the “ARGH!” or “WOW!” or “BAM!” :-) I also appreciate that the cast is really diverse, and some of the super kids are kids with special needs, one girl has prosthetic legs, another boy is blind and has a seeing eye dog sidekick. We started with the first book in the series (which wasn’t actually my favorite) and have read them somewhat out of order, so here is my breakdown so far:

Mia Mayhem is a Super Hero: Yes, begin with this one as it sets up the series, and I appreciate that Mia wasn’t good at everything right away but I kind of wish that the kid who rescued her in her failed flying attempt wasn’t a boy… it just felt a bit “old fashioned” to me.

Mia Mayhem Learns to Fly: I liked this one better than Book 1

Mia Mayhem Stops Time: My son read this about three times, so take his word for it, not mine. (I found the time travel and stopping time stuff really irritating (but I tend to feel that way about time travel) and the mom in me wanted Mia to have stronger consequences for messing with it.)

Mia Mayhem Steals the Show: I love theater, so this was a lot of fun for me. It focuses more on events at Mia’s regular school (not the PITS). Even a superhero can get stage fright, and I like that her heroic efforts don’t require superpowers, it’s good role modeling for real world kids.

Mia Mayhem and the Super Family Field Day: Super fun! This is one of my favorites, and my son’s favorites, too. It’s nice to see all the families engaged in friendly competition and Mia learns an important lesson about good sportsmanship.

Mia Mayhem and the Super Switcheroo: Super implausible, but, hey, it was fun and I enjoy Eddie so it was nice seeing him more and that he got a chance to be a superhero, too, for a while.

Mia Mayhem Rides the Waves: This one focuses on more everyday life scenarios for Mia, what it’s like to be a superhero when you aren’t “being” a superhero. She helps clean up a beach and I appreciate the emphasis on being an “everyday hero” and the positive role modeling for kids reading the book.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not the target audience.

Read this book for work. I appreciated the happy, healthy, non-white family representation, but otherwise was underwhelmed. It felt a bit didactic, and any storyline about "cleaning up the environment" that ends with "and then we threw the trash in the trashcan" is more upsetting than happy to me. The trash in the trashcan goes into a dump that still makes trash in our world and our ocean. Just because you've moved the trash doesn't mean you've helped. Which is panic-inducing to think about at any time.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mia's family takes a much needed vacation and enjoys their time at the beach. Mia spearheads a major cleanup and includes the seagulls. Then a disaster strikes as they get more and more assertive about cleaning up around the other beach goers. Mia learns that even when someone has the best of intentions, something can go wrong. It's how you move forward and learn that matters.

[Mabel Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mia Mayhem is in training for PITS which is a top secret superhero training academy. She went on a holiday to the beach and she saw lots and lots and LOTS of rubbish. She asked the seagulls to help clean up the rubbish, but they got a bit out of control. I want to read more books from this series.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
SAVE OUR OCEANS!