Have you ever had this problem? You're hungry and your only two choices are Hamburger or Hot Dog. Which one do you choose? You want to eat both! They both look so tasty! Well, wipe away those tears and turn that frown upside-down. The food scientists at BurgerDog have the solution for you!

BurgerDog's patented and unique blend of beef and pork comes from our genetically modified pig cows. That's right! We took the tastiest, most succulent parts of the pig and the beefiest portions of the cow and combined their DNA into a new breed of animal, the Pigcow! Now each BurgerDog sandwich is literally saturated with Beefy-Porky Goodness! Why choose between burger or hot dog when you can have both at the same time! Visit a BurgerDog today!

Disclaimer: Eating BurgerDog may result in human zombification within minutes of ingesting BurgerDog. Eat BurgerDog at your own risk. BurgerDog claims no responsibility for humans who become zombies due to eating BurgerDog.

And so it begins. The zombie apocalypse due to genetically modified fast food. Sound like a heavy handed allegory for the Food Industry while at the same time being an indictment of huge corporations like Monsanto? Probably.
Does it sound silly? Oh yeah.

Is it great fun? You bet your sweet bippy it is!

The Zombie Chasers is a series of 5 middle/upper elementary books by John Kloepfer. They follow our vanilla hero Zack Clarke and his gang of middle school aged zombie chasers across America as they search for a cure for the deadly zombie outbreak. Zack's gang consists of his best friend and "zombie expert" Rice, his sister Zoe, Zoe's B.F.F. Madison, and Kung-Fu master/military brat Ozzie. Their quest for a zombie cure takes them across the United States to a wealth of locations ranging from Phoenix Arizona to the White House, to the Mall of America, and to the Mysterious and sinister BurgerDog food Research Facility in Montana.

The Zombie Chasers battle zombies in an epic food fight at their hometown middle school, engage in zombie dodgeball, fight their way through a horde of zombified Elvis impersonators and come across what may be the grossest thing I have ever read...a two story tall giant made entirely of zombified meat patties.

 Oh, don't forget the brain flavored popcorn.

BRAIN FLAVORED POPCORN!?!?

That's just the first three books, folks!

I will admit that I was a tad skeptical when I picked this series off the shelf. I have been over zombies since the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. I think it's all been re-tread over and over again since then. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading these. Kloepfer deftly blends sarcasm, humor, and plenty of gore for the more mature readers. The characters are very relateable. With the exception of Ozzie, whom they meet in the second book "Undead Ahead", all the characters knew each other before the apocalypse. They still maintain that type of relationship in how they handle their problems. They insult each other, high five, and show an easy to read, very believable rapport. I think young people who read these books will appreciate the fact that Kloepfer seems to understand how kids talk these days. The characters are very colloquial to one another and often refer to each other as dude, bro, or sometimes nerdburger, loser, dorkwad, or Mr. Bossypants.

What really sells this series for me are the phenomenal, and often disgusting descriptions. I don't know how Kloepfer does it, but he comes up with an infinite number of ways to describe the zombies and their various states of decay. For example, "The zombie sneered back at him, revealing it's hideous decomposing chompers. A nasty boil exploded like a lava bubble." 

-Sludgement Day pg.5

These books are not without their faults. They tend to gloss over some heavy emotional bits, such as when Zack's sister gets munched by the horde...in the first 30 pages...of the first book. Or when Zack/Zoe's parents get zombified. There is the hope of a zombie cure, but the book never really touches on what's going to happen to all the zombies who have lost limbs, guts, and other body parts (and there are plenty described in the text) during the outbreak. What happens to them when they turn back into humans? Is it even ethical to bring them back from being zombies if they're going to die because their guts have spilled out of them? That type of problem bothered me the entire time I was reading these. But emotional gravity and hard-hitting ethics aren't what these books are about. They are all about gross-out fun. And in that, they succeed mightily. They may not be Newbery quality, but many kids ages 9-12 are

going to gobble these up like brain-flavored popcorn.

-Mr. Mike

Copyright John Kloepfer and his publishing company. I don't own anything related to The Zombie Chasers.