Black Badge

Black Badge is an intriguing series. It is a combination of the down and dirty black OPS type narrative against the wholesomeness of the Boy Scouts. It makes sense when you think about it. It takes an amazing amount of dedication to get your badges, and it is in a variety of fields. What better way to find the perfect type recruits than to recruit from a pool of characters that do it for self-betterment. The writing is excellent and the graphics are top notch. I would expect nothing less than great from Tyler Jenkins. (I dug Grass Kings) I definitely think if you love espionage stories with a twist, this is the right thing to read. Check it out!

Is spying a genre? Oh well, it's one now. The cover is definitely something that drew me in. I like how it's drawn but also it's super cool? There's tons of badges and the nosebleed? Excellent. But the art inside – I'm not an expert in drawing like at all, but the illustrations were a bit weird. Not like bad weird, just that the characters were drawn a bit weird. Didn't put me off wanting to read it, though.

My mother and I are always interested in reading news about the Girl Guides (she was a leader, my sister and I were part of it. It was really fun) and what they're doing. When I saw the book, I went ‘yeah, that's something I want' and clicked request and luckily they approved me!!

I love kids doing things normally done by adults – spying, fighting, being badasses. I believe this is the first book in the series of what I'm hoping will be more; but it did feel like they just dropped the reader into the middle of a case and let the reader piece together the story. These kids are young and they're ferocious but I still want to protect them? Like sure, give them weapons and send them off to various places for cases; but also give them a blanket and some snacks so they can sleep, please.

I like that there's different types of teams and they're all expert in different things and that's definitely something I'd want to see in later volumes. Another thing I think the writers did amazing work on was the camp and the map that was added in. Carcass disposal? Tactical jump scares? I found the badges to be amazing – crime scene cleaning, shark attack? Where are the issues where a scout would try to receive one of those badges?

I'm going to be honest here, I don't remember the plot at all. Obviously they were on a mission. I vaguely remember they sort of go rogue? Or maybe they don't. That's it. I remember the characters more but that's about it.

Do I recommend it?

It's a fun, easy-to-read book. If you want an adventure with kids who know what's what, this book is a good one.