Eccentricity abounds in this fantastical underdog tale of natural and historical preservation.
A quick-witted preteen challenges a country club tycoon while visiting her grandmother’s peculiar hometown.
After inquisitive 12-year-old Peachaloo Piccolozampa is stung by a wasp at her grandmother Helena’s favorite swimming spot in Fourwords, Pennsylvania, she acquires EWP—extra wasp perception—which allows her to understand the real meaning behind people’s words. Peachaloo applies her new skill when Major Gasbag and Georgie, his grandson, arrive in town after purchasing the historical Ajax Mansion, which once belonged to a community of rope-jumping craftspeople and artisans with a love of nature and no use for luxury. Major Gasbag plans to fence off the forest and other natural resources around the mansion, including Helena’s swimming hole, and build a country club accessible only to wealthy townspeople. In this quirky and whimsically narrated small-town story, Helena, Peachaloo, and best friend Lily protest Major Gasbag’s plans, all while preparing for the annual end-of-summer pageant. Simple, stylized line illustrations accompany the text, bringing the town of Fourwords to life. Humor joins clever dialogue and an engaging plot that will sweep readers away to a whirlwind ending. Peachaloo limps due to having one leg that’s shorter; she takes pride in her physical difference and loves her cane. Main characters are cued white. Lily reports an odd exchange after asking her father, Ira Schwartz, whether their surname, which means black, means they have Black ancestry; he says maybe someone in their family was a soot-covered chimney sweep or just black-haired.
Eccentricity abounds in this fantastical underdog tale of natural and historical preservation. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780823458554
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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