Street Angel: Deadliest Girl Alive

LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED) --Homeless teenage ninja master Jesse“Street Angel” Sanchez branches out to battle more than“ninjas, drugs, nepotism, and pre-algebra” in this action-packed,hilarious new story collection from series cocreators Rugg (Dr. Horrible)and Maruca (Afrodisiac). In “Street Angel: After School Kung FuSpecial,” Jesse contends with dual challenges when her best friend begsher to find a date to the school dance and a cruel boy named Jacob attempts togoad her into a fight. In “Street Angel Gang,” the promise of freepizza lures her to the tryouts for a local gang, whose members are impressedafter she first steals a rival gang leader's robot arm, and later a live tiger.Throughout, Rugg's virtuosic illustrations combine a punky aesthetic withinfluences ranging from manga to commercial art, mixing bright colors, mutedshading, sharp angles, and looping lines to create a distinctive, infectiousenergy perfectly matched to the antics of our clever and entertainingprotagonist.VERDICT Unimpressed at meeting SantaClaus but ebullient while serving out a prison sentence, Jesse is a scrappy yetsupremely confident spitfire with appeal to readers of allages.