Nick & Nate vs. the Notorious Nose Nabbler
James Seamone
Independently Published (2025)
ISBN: 979-8325077876
Reviewed by Leslie Anne Smith for Reader Views (04/2025)
“Nick & Nate vs. the Notorious Nose Nabbler” is a hilarious adventure following a pair of uncles while they try and catch the titular Nose Nabbler and steal their nieces’ noses back. James Seamone has created a wacky and outright fun story that explores urban legends and Canadian geography using full-page color illustrations and funky texts. Readers who enjoyed the Captain Underpants series, Jon Klassen’s “This is Not My Hat,” or Michaël Escoffier’s “Brief Thief” will find another rolling around the bed laughing favorite in this book.
Seamone and artist Ian Etheridge seem to make a great team for this book. Seamone’s outlandish idea is brought to life in engaging illustrations and with illustrative text. Several words on each page are put into different and funky fonts, drawing the reader’s eye. This will help engage young readers, pulling them into the story further as they have fun with the different visual expressions of words alongside the illustrations. There are several Where’s Waldo-type pages as well to engage with. I found a few of these quite challenging, so there will be lots of fun trying to find the Notorious Nose Nabbler with young readers. These pages would likely work better in one-on-one reading sessions rather than group settings, simply due to the size of the pictures.
The greatest strength of this story is simply the unapologetic fun that it has. The Nose Nabbler is a silly villain, but the way the story unfolds is delightful. Young readers and adults alike will be entertained by Nick and Nate’s adventures through Canada as they search for the Nose Nabbler. Should educators want to adapt this story to the classroom, there are lots of opportunities to do so alongside geography lessons or learning how to use adjectives in a sentence.
Young readers will have fun engaging with the illustrations and the story, lending itself to lots of funny and interesting discussions as they go through the story. James Seamone’s “Nick & Nate vs. the Notorious Nose Nabbler” could easily become a bedtime favorite and inspire lots of imagination games afterwards. I hope to see more wacky adventures from Nick and Nate!