Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute is the latest graphic novel to be nominated for a book award: The Children's Book Council picked it as a finalist in their Children's Choice Book Awards earlier this month in the third-to-fourth-grade category.

Krosoczka's cheery, canary-yellow books are sort of a school-cafeteria take on Maxwell Smart, with the Lunch Lady and her sidekick Betty taking on various outlandish forms of evil with specialized weapons such as taco night-vision goggles and banana boomerangs.

The CBC finalists were voted on by actual kids, so it's not surprising that Krosoczka's book made the cut, as he heads directly for the fourth-grader's funnybone; the public at large can vote for the winner online, and the results will be announced on May 11. (Krocosczka explained the origins of the Lunch Lady when I interviewed him for Graphic Novel Reporter last year.)