Review of "Snoodles in Space- Escape from Zoodletraz" by Steven Joseph

Score: 90+/100 (9.0+ out of 10)

If Snoodles in Space was one of the weirdest, strangest, goofiest, silliest, most bizarre books we had ever read, Escape from Zoodletraz is that same energy turned up another notch. Sometimes that is delightful. Sometimes it is just exhausting.

Once again, we are back in Noodleham with the Snoodlemans, the Croodlemans, and the endlessly multiplying Zoodle crowd. The first book already gave us rival inventors, noodle cars, kraut cars, renewable energy subtext, and a whole alien race with names that sounded like a phonics worksheet gone rogue. This sequel takes that already convoluted universe and piles even more on top. New threats appear, new gadgets and contraptions are introduced, and a new crisis sends everyone hurtling back into space, this time toward a prison called Zoodletraz where escape is supposed to be impossible.

On paper, that is a fun hook. A space jail break in a world of noodle powered technology and cranky aliens has a lot of potential. You can feel the big kid friendly ingredients there. There is a wrong that needs to be righted, relationships that need to be repaired, and a dangerous place that needs to be infiltrated. In a more streamlined book, that could be a tight, satisfying adventure.

The experience of reading it, though, is a lot more chaotic than that simple summary suggests.

Just like the first book, Escape from Zoodletraz is obsessed with sound and word play. The long “oo” sound is everywhere again. There are more snoodles, poodles, noodles, roodles, and zoodles than ever. There are more tongue twisters and alliterative phrases that practically dare you to read them aloud without tripping. If you loved lines like “Prickly Peppered Purple Propulsion Powered Pickle” in the original, this book feels like the author saying, “Oh, you liked that? Here are ten more.”

That is both a strength and a weakness.

As a read aloud experience, this can be a riot. Kids who enjoy nonsense words and silly sounds are going to feast on this. You can almost hear a classroom of children repeating their favorite phrases, trying to outdo each other, and begging to hear the same sections again. There is a kind of musicality to the language that fits the over the top cartoon nature of the world.

The price you pay for that, however, is clarity. The first book already had a “pretty convoluted plot with a plethora of characters” and two overlapping storylines. This one feels even more crowded. You still have the human families and their noodle and kraut energy baggage. You still have the Zoodle leadership and their various sidekicks and hench-creatures. Now you add another big crisis, more side characters, more running jokes, and a whole prison break scenario, often introduced in quick succession with almost no breathing room.

There are entire stretches where it feels like something new, noisy, and slightly random is happening on every page. For some readers, that nonstop novelty is the appeal. For others, especially anyone who prefers a clear story spine, it begins to feel like work. You start asking yourself questions like, “Wait, who is that? Why are we here now? What are we even trying to accomplish in this scene?” If you find yourself confused and a little frustrated in the middle of this book, you are not alone. We were right there with you.

The plotting feels more episodic and jumpy than the first book. In the original, we could still more or less follow the arc from rivalry to kidnapping to joint mission to resolve the conflict. Here, the emotional through line gets buried under the running gags, puns, and set pieces. The basic idea seems to be that an alien with hurt pride sets off a chain of bad decisions, the humans and Zoodles are pulled into another high stakes situation, and a daring escape is required. That is solid. We just wish the book trusted that core more and allowed everything else to orbit around it instead of competing with it.

On the positive side, the themes that made the first book interesting are still here in spirit. There is still this insistence that people with differences can eventually work together (to make music and turn Zoodletraz into a tourist attraction that celebrates music). There is still a sense that invention, creativity, and science can be used to solve problems instead of make them worse. There are undercurrents about ego, jealousy, and what happens when a person cannot handle failure in a healthy way. All of that is incredibly relevant for kids, even if it arrives wrapped in a very loud package.

We also want to acknowledge the sheer level of effort evident in the art by Andy Case, who makes his return to the series. In the first book, we admired how much work went into “60 pages of illustrations, most of which are quite good.” This sequel clearly required a similar or even greater level of visual labor. There are actually 80 pages of illustrations in this one, and they're arguably even better than the first! Every page is packed with character designs, backgrounds, vehicles, gadgets, and tiny visual jokes. You can tell that the illustrator was asked to imagine a whole universe’s worth of chaos and then actually draw it.

That work shows. The world feels big, lived in, and consistent with what came before. Kids can spend a long time just pointing at things and asking questions. “What is that?” “Why is that character dressed like that?” “What do you think this machine does?” That kind of visual density does a lot to keep young readers engaged, especially those who love spotting details.

And we wanted to say this: this book is genuinely hilarious at times. The Grand Doodle's whole plot and arc while being a pharoah-dressed infant is hilarious. It's even more hilarious that he has a whole stack of self-help books on getting revenge! What, you don't?

The Grand Doodle also shows a bit of humanity and relatability. Heck, he might be the most relatable character in this book despite being "evil." He wants to be a successful, famous musician like a lot of people want to. Unfortunately, he gets a lot of bad reviews on his performances. It's extra sad because he genuinely looks happy and like he's enjoying himself while performing on his guitar. It's unfortunate that he's booed relentlessly. Hey, we can relate! Can't you?

He just happens to take it too far in trying to get revenge. Oh, and by the way... It does kinda seem like his revenge plot is very loosely tied to what his henchmen actually try to pull off with the Zoodletraz plot. They almost seem like two separate evil plots entirely.

It's also funny that it's mentioned that Evil Kidoodle is said to be "really not that evil. It is just the name his parents gave him." That's funny!

We even got a kick out of the fact that the superhero/superheroine in this universe is a geriatric female named Swifty Swoodle, who kinda reminded us of the grandma from Grandma Yogini.

And maybe we're a bit dirty minded, but it was kinda funny seeing Sour Croodleman holding his sketchy-looking purple propulsion pickle.

Also, why is there a sign-language interpreter illustrated on these pages, which are already chaotic? We thought that was... interesting.

Anyway, the art was the highlight of the book.

At the same time, the art shares the text’s main flaw. It is very busy, almost all the time. There are very few quiet or simple spreads where the eye gets a rest and the story gets to breathe. Important story beats sometimes feel visually similar to side gags and throwaway moments, so it can be hard for a child to know what to focus on. In a book that is already verbally dense and conceptually chaotic, that visual busyness can tip things from “packed with fun” into “overwhelming.”

Compared to the first Snoodles in Space, our sense is that the balance has shifted a bit in the wrong direction. The original was undeniably strange and convoluted, but it still felt like the heart of the story could push through the noise. You had the energy rivalry, the kidnapped relatives, the tension between the two families, and the larger question of whether they would set aside their differences to save the people they loved. It was a lot, but you could trace the line from start to finish.

With Escape from Zoodletraz, that line feels more tangled. The stakes are still there, and the emotional core still exists, but it takes more effort to find it under all the word play and spectacle. The book seems to assume that “more is better” in every single category. More characters. More jokes. More gadgets. More crises. More pages. For some kids, especially those who already love the universe, that will be a dream. For others, it will feel like too much of a good thing.

We want to be fair here. It takes courage to double down on a very particular kind of weirdness. It takes creativity and stamina to keep inventing new puns, new devices, and new twists in a world that already seemed maxed out. You can tell that the author and illustrator are all in. There is no half measure. That commitment is admirable, and it will absolutely resonate with readers who are hungry for something that does not feel like every other picture book on the shelf.

At the same time, we also want to be honest about our reading experience. There were points at which this book stopped feeling “wonderfully weird” and just felt needlessly confusing and random. There were moments when we wanted it to slow down, focus, and let a single emotional beat land without immediately jumping to the next joke or contraption. There were scenes when we found ourselves flipping back a page or two just to reorient, and that is not ideal in a book that is presumably aimed at children.

So where does that leave us?

We think Snoodles in Space: Escape from Zoodletraz is a bold, energetic sequel that will absolutely delight a particular slice of readers, especially those who already loved the first book and want even more chaos, more sound, and more spectacle. It is inventive. It is packed with imagination. It has heart under all the silliness. It is also, at times, a confusing and overstuffed reading experience that asks a lot of its audience in terms of attention and patience.

If you or your kids thrive on maximalist, over the top stories and do not mind feeling a little lost along the way, this may hit your sweet spot. If you prefer a clearer through line and a bit more breathing room, you will probably still appreciate the creativity here, but you may find yourself wishing that Zoodletraz had just a little less noise and a little more focus.

Check it out on Amazon!