With Volume 2, this series hits its stride.
This Halloween is not about trick-or-treating for the Torchbearers.
A team forged during their original adventure at Still Cove in series opener The Darkdeep (2018), Opal, Emma, Tyler, Nico, and Logan are not quite done with the creatures of that terrifying place. Along with the gremlins and other wild “figments” causing havoc in the small, Pacific Northwest town of Timbers, new apparitions are on the loose, and it is the team’s job to catch whatever escapes the Darkdeep. Validating what was thought to be a harmless local legend, there’s been a sighting of an actual Beast, a demon that has crossed from another dimension. With their parents conveniently absent, these seventh graders decide to investigate. The peculiar green blob in the jar has been speaking to both Opal and Nico psychically. This disembodied being from another realm, whom the kids call Thing, tells the story of the origins of the Darkdeep and the connected realm of the Rift and offers to help the Torchbearers seal the Rift. Now that the series is underway, this second installment offers more actualized characters and a darker backstory than the first book, setting a more engaging pace. With an early October release date, this will make a rousing Halloween read. Tyler has dark skin and Opal and Logan, ambiguous black hair, but the book adheres to a white default.
With Volume 2, this series hits its stride. (Paranormal suspense. 10-12)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0203-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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
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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