Parent reviews for Belly Up: FunJungle, Book 1

An inventive and fun mystery set at a new zoo / theme park in Texas. Due to the animal theme, I was expecting the story to be targeted at a younger audience. However, like the author's other main series, Spy School, this first entry contains a surprising amount of swearing from the adult characters in the book. But Gibbs dials that back a good deal for the later books in the series. Still, I plan to skip this series for my younger daughter until she's a few years older. Also as the Common Sense review mentions, there is a scene where the main character (12) and an older teen girl strip down to their underwear to enter a pool as they investigate a hippo's murder. There are also a variety of gross out scenes describing dead animals being autopsied, and one where a hippo's carcass drops from a height and explodes in a gory wave over a bunch of bystanders.

me And my family read this book I totally do not think this is age-appropriate for 8 yr olds it has so much language for a children's book Words included are: Bastard, Hell, Oh God, Damn, Etc, it was an amazing written book though on a bunch of animals in a zoo and one being murdered and the main character (teddy) trying to figure out who murdered Henry (the Hippo) also for kids who get very disturbed by dead stuff and organs because there is an autopsy in this book which is performed by the doctor and they dig through his organs trying to find the cause of his death it is also very descriptive on the autopsy it's a great book for a mature child there is basically no sex except the author describing how pretty a 13 yr old girl is and how teddy gets lost in her beautiful blue eyes sorry for the long review

My 9 year old just finished this book and while he enjoyed it, he reported several curse words and "extensive use of the word crap". He did not feel that these words added to the story, instead they were distracting and useless. The story was hilarious and offered a good mystery, but he said there were too many swear words.