My Grandparents are Secret Agents by Scott Christian Sava

Alyssa and Nicholas' grandparents are taking care of them for the weekend while their parents go to New York.  They're expecting to have fun with the grandparents, but they had no idea how exciting things were going to get!  It turns out that their charming old grandma and grandpa are actually secret agents, and Alyssa and Nicholas end up tagging along with them when an emergency case comes up.

This was cute and quick.  It was very simple and drawn with bold, bright colors.  Grandma and Grandpa are trying to stop the evil Purple Haze, who's trying to make it the 1960s again by stealing different components to make a time machine.  Alyssa and Nicholas take the news that their grandparents are fighting crime very well, and off they all go on their adventure!  Their grandparents provide the children with a robot dog to look after and protect them, and the robot dog ends up saving the day.

There wasn't a whole lot to it, but it was certainly fun and I think would be a great read for elementary students.  And we get to learn about how things aren't always what they appear, and that your old grandma might actually be a kick-ass crime fighter!

Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians by J. Krosoczka

Something strange is going on with the librarians.  And it involves the Book Fair and the new X-Station 5000!  Luckily, Lunch Lady, her trusty sidekick Betty and the Breakfast Bunch are on the case!

Adorable.  Hysterical.  I love the Lunch Lady series.  I love the gadgets Betty makes, like the Taco-vision Night Goggles and Sonic-Boom Juice Boxes.  Lunch Lady is dedicated to fighting crime, but doesn't let that get in the way of her duties as a lunch lady.

One problem:  It sort of made me sad that even in an adorable elementary level graphic novel the librarians are evil technology haters.  Sigh.  They're planning on destroying all the X-Station 5000s so people will have to read books.  And then they'll take over the world.  Like you do.

It takes Lunch Lady to put the two together and have an awesome Book Fair where students can also play the new X-Station 5000.  Because all librarians are against gaming in the library.  So again: sigh.  I really like this series, and I don't even mind the librarians being made evil.  I just wish they'd been made evil in some way not relating to hating technology, that's all.

On the plus side, the librarian's evil weapons were releasing "beasts" from various books - the three little pigs, the black stallion, the wolves from Call of the Wild, various characters from Alice in Wonderland and so forth.  Awesome weapon.

But this is a GREAT series and I highly recommend it for your elementary grade students!