Frustrating ending aside, a solid start to a promising middle-grade series.
Princess Diana of Themyscira sets off on a middle-grade adventure.
Twelve-year-old Diana loves her island home and her Amazon community dearly, but she longs for one thing: permission to train in the art of combat with her fellow warriors. Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta, has long told Diana that the battlefield is no place for her, but Diana hopes this might be the year she can finally convince her mother to let her train. In the meantime, eagerly awaited guests are arriving on the island: The best and brightest women in the world have been invited to Themyscira for a festival of ideas, food, and culture. Among these visitors is Sakina, Diana’s best friend, and a mysterious stranger warning Diana of a threat not just to Themyscira, but to the entire world. The author does an admirable job creating an adventure for young Diana to embark upon without breaking the established canon of the Wonder Woman mythos. Diana’s characterization lines up with her comic counterpart’s, but Sakina’s character seems a bit thin by comparison. The book’s real Achilles heel is the ending, a boilerplate tee up for a future installment that promises resolution and answers to the story that readers are entitled to now, particularly after 250 pages. Diversity is suggested through names and cultural references.
Frustrating ending aside, a solid start to a promising middle-grade series. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: July 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17447-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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