“Hey, don’t touch that!”

From Steve Behling’s The Pirate Angel, the Taking Tree, and Captain Rabbit.

After the Guardians off the Galaxy answered a distress beacon to the destroyed Asgardian spaceship, the Guardians were only able to find one survivor, Thor, the god of thunder.  Once they learn that the evil Thanos destroyed Thor’s ship to further advance his plan for universal domination, the Guardians agree to help Thor fight against Thanos.  The talking raccoon pilot, Rocket, and the teenage talking tree named Groot, head out with Thor on a quest to find Nidavellir, while the other Guardians split up to carry out a separate plan.  Best friends and longtime criminals, Rocket and Groot have long been inseparable, but since Groot’s near-death sacrifice resulted in young tree, the pair have struggling to get along.  Their mission is off to a rocky start as the distracted Thor makes Rocket nervous and the moody Groot finds Rocket’s journal and begins to read it.  The entries Groot finds in the journal include when a multi-eyed alien blackmailed them into stealing a planet’s core, when Rhomann Dey of the Nova Corps asked Rocket for some slightly-illegal help stopping a deadly Kree attack, and when Rocket had to pilot the Guardians through a deadly asteroid field in order to try to rescue a trapped mining ship.  Between reading Rocket’s journal, Groot watches the short-tempered raccoon struggle with repeated troubles, but the more he reads, the more Groot wonders if there’s not more to Rocket than meets the eye.

While this book is definitely written for readers that have previous knowledge of the Avengers and Guardians movies, most young readers will enjoy the action and humor found within.  The short chapters make it a quick read and Behling’s style is engaging.  The Pirate Angel, The Talking Tree, and Captain Rabbit is a solid movie tie-in for young readers.