Icky Ricky #1: Toilet Paper Mummy - Couverture souple

What makes Icky Ricky so icky? Well, there was this time, for example . . .

Chapter #1
HOMEWORK CHEESE and THE BOOGER BUBBLE FREAKOUT
    Starring
THE NOT-SO-SAFE WATERMELON BIKE HELMET!
     Yesterday, Gus came over to my house and wanted to go bike riding. I couldn't find my bike helmet. So instead of wasting time looking for it, I decided to make a helmet.
     I brought a watermelon from the kitchen out to the front steps. I cut it in half with a plastic knife because I'm not allowed to use real knives and that took forever. Then I scooped out all of the insides. I put the watermelon on my head. It looked really cool. I had an awesome bike helmet, even though it was all drippy and stuff. Then Gus wanted a watermelon helmet, too. So we made his from the other half of the watermelon.
     We didn't know if the helmets were safe for bike riding, so we tested them. We dropped things on them, like a book, splop! And a shoe, clomp! And a wrench, blonk! And then a really big book, kasplop! Then we did one more test. We ran into a wall as hard as we could.
     Wham!
     Splop! The helmets cracked, and the juices and gunk ran all over our faces. We couldn't go bike riding.
But all of that testing had made us hungry. We went back to the steps and scraped all of the watermelon insides into a bowl. But there were ants in it now, and a leaf and a stick. I don't eat ants. (It's not fair to them.) We let the ants have the watermelon, and we picked out the seeds.
     We decided to have a watermelon seed-spitting contest.

The creator of Goodnight Goon and The Runaway Mummy pulls from his mad-scientist brain a kid so attracted to slime, muck, dirt, and yuck he could only be called Icky Ricky.

Uh-oh! Icky Ricky is in trouble and has a lot of explaining to do. Why? Well, you see . . .

He did his homework on cheese slices, but got hungry and ate them.
He had his friends over for a sleepover . . . on the bedroom ceiling.
Harry, Icky Ricky's favorite hot dog, just landed in his dad's toolbox.
The town bully, Mean Dean, is looking to pound whoever lost his remote-controlled car. Was is Icky Ricky?

Icky Ricky is up to his eyebrows in mayhem--and in ick!

"Icky Ricky proves to be a satisfying new hero for readers who are ready for a more expansive view of the world than that offered by Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series. . . .  Readers will easily conclude that Ricky is awesome!"-- BooklistOnline
"Hits the gross-out sweet spot."-- Kirkus
"I thoroughly enjoyed these books, and I look forward to more icky adventures from young Ricky."--Nick Bruel, author of Bad Kitty