A happily fanciful wrap-up, with a whole new adventure likely to come.
Completing their quest, Trundle and Esmeralda literally reconfigure their whole world.
Five thin volumes ago, Trundle was a humble hedgehog working as a lamplighter on a cabbage-farming planet, and Esmeralda was the scrappy stranger who yanked him into a rough-and-tumble adventure (Trundle’s Quest, 2011). Traveling by skyboat across their archipelago of sky islands, which is called the Sundered Lands, the two hedgehogs seek the sixth hidden crown from an old legend. They don’t know exactly what reuniting the six crowns will do, but they know they have to accomplish it before the pirates do—not to mention Esmeralda’s evil aunt, who wants to run the world. Machinery has “cogwheels and gears and ratchets and sprockets”; bad guys carry “muskets and pistols and blunderbusses.” Loud explosions and thud-and-blunder battles supply plenty of bluster (though the text leans a bit hard on exclamation points) while moving quickly and predictably enough to suit fans of the formula. A few refreshing surprises break the mold without undermining the narrative structure’s comforting safety. As it has been for the whole series, ethnic stereotyping—“I’m a Roamany….I have the sixth sense”—is shameful. Trundle and Esmeralda sail “sunward beyond Nightreef” and end up unwittingly recombining the Sundered Lands into a single planet so breezily that readers may not even question the whereabouts of, well, the archipelago’s entire population.
A happily fanciful wrap-up, with a whole new adventure likely to come. (Animal steampunk. 7-10)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-200639-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Lively fun with animal friends.
Has Plum’s pep deserted him?
Several animals from the Athensville Zoo are on their way to visit an elementary school. Overconfident Itch the ningbing (an Australian marsupial), unaware that zookeeper Lizzie will be doing all the talking, looks forward to “lecturing eager young minds.” Plum, the usually chipper peacock, on the other hand, is anxious—maybe the schoolchildren won’t like him or he’ll get lost. So when they arrive at the school to find the students have been sent home due to a blizzard, Plum is relieved. The animals are left in a school gym for the night until three self-important class mice free them. Itch heads for the library to meet the learned turtle, but Plum reluctantly explores with his friends. When his anxiety peaks, they reassure him, and when the mice reject Meg, another peacock, as “borrrring” and uncool, they buoy her as well before everyone comes together to save Itch, who finds himself outside and stranded in a snowdrift. Unlike Leave It to Plum (2022), this is not a mystery, and the relationship focus shifts from Lizzie to the rodents, but the pace is brisk, and sequel seekers will be pleased to revisit familiar characters (if dismayed that Itch’s longing for knowledge leads to his downfall). In Phelan’s engaging grayscale pen-and-wash illustrations, Lizzie has short curly hair; text and art cue her as Latine.
Lively fun with animal friends. (how to draw Plum) (Chapter book. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-307920-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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