Rodeo Hawkins and the Daughters of Mayhem

81emYy0Q4AL
Co-Authors / Illustrators
Publisher
Age Range
8+
Release Date
September 08, 2025
ISBN
978-0823445127
Buy This Book
     
Foster kid Sidney Poblocki is thrilled to learn his destiny is to save the multiverse—until he discovers it’s actually his destiny to destroy it—in this fantasy adventure graphic novel!

Get ready for Mayhem!

When Sidney Poblocki runs away from his troubled home life, he winds up in a whole new world of trouble. Why are interdimensional assassins after him along with every other kid named Sidney Poblocki throughout the multiverse? Will he ever see his best bud Walt again now that Walt’s memory of Sidney has been erased? And what the heck is the deal with Rodeo Hawkins and her ragtag gang of mischief-making girls the Daughters of Mayhem?!

They claim they’re trying to keep him safe, but Sidney isn’t so certain “safe” is even in their vocabulary. As Sidney is swept into a series of misadventures that will change the multiverse forever, one thing is for certain: with Rodeo Hawkins around, his life is about to be filled with a lot more mayhem.

Editor review

1 review
A Goofy Romp Across the Multiverse
(Updated: June 06, 2026)
Overall rating
 
4.0
Plot
 
4.0
Characters
 
4.0
Writing Style
 
4.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
4.0
Sidney Poblocki has finally found a foster care placements where he has a friend, Walt, but things go bad quickly when a group identifying themselves as Paladins appear out of thin air and tell him that they have to take him away to train with them! He ends up in their world, but is relegated to a dungeon, which doesn't seem quite right. Sure enough, Rodeo Hawkins, who identifies herself as a Daughter of Mayhem, shows up and claims that the Paladins have killed a number of other Sidney Poblocki's, and he is the last one standing in their way. She whisks him off to the treehouse fortress of her "femininjas", who are a bit put out that this Sidney is a boy. They try to explain the multiverse to him, and that fact that they are currently in the WoBeWo; the World Between Worlds, where things go when they vanish from other worlds. The Paladins release 400 dragonfly spies to try to locate Sidney, and Sidney meets up with Chainsaw Charlie as well as Madame Zoltana, who is working with the Paladins and won't tell him the prophecy in which he is mentioned. The Paladins eventually locate the treehouse, which leads to an altercation in the forest, where the Paladins tell Rodeo that if she hands over Sidney, everyone else can go free. Sidney manages to muster powers to bring everyone into his plane of existence on Earth, where they manage to regroup. Rodeo discovers that there are demon lords still around, even though the Paladins claim to have dispatched them, and Sidney comes up with a plan to steal the necklace that binds them and send them into a black hole. Will the Daughters of Mayhem keep the multiverse from imploding, and if they do, how will they feel about Sidney becoming one of their ranks?
Good Points
Multiverse stories are often frenetic and goofy, and this graphic novel is no exception. There is a being from another planet who manifests herself as a 1950s style robot named Go, Bugbear, who seems to speak a language everyone but Sidney can understand, and two girls named Tori, one of whom has green, leafy hair that lets her synthesize food! Rodeo seems to have a lot of unrelated side missions that occasionally pop up, like when she sends Sidney to demand a vanilla soda from Chainsaw Charlie as a distraction so she can threaten him because he owes her money, or when we find out that she was raised by the cave lion Mama Onca. With so much going on, it makes perfect sense to have demon lords suddenly appear and need to be sealed in the shadow dimension!

Miles' illustrations (which also show up in McAnulty's Save the People and Where are the Aliens?, Rubin's The Ice Cream Machine, Jewell's The Anti Racist Kid, and Ross' Alley and Rex) have a great teen look to them, and show the various levels of the multiverse to good effect. I'll be interested to see a final edition with full color, since Tori's green hair is no doubt spectacular!

While there are several middle grade novels that deal with multiverses, like Wilson's Me vs. The Multiverse, Caprara's Mission Multiverse, Lubar's Emperor of the Universe series, and Cypess and Molebash's Future Me Saves the Universe, this is the first graphic novel treatment of that theme I have seen. Fans of goofy, fantastical romps like Barnett and Harris' The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza or Angelberger's The Two Headed Chicken will love following Sidney's adventures with Rodeo as he tries to avoid being killed by the Paladins!
Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 2 0

User reviews

There are no user reviews for this listing.
Already have an account? or Create an account