Tedious and derivative.
A 12-year-old white girl discovers she is a witch and sets off to fight forces of evil with her magical animal companion.
When she was 3, Quicksilver’s parents abandoned her at a convent. There, she is made fun of for her squashed nose and gray hair, and she retaliates by stealing and disobeying. She befriends a bedraggled dog, names him Fox, and tells him of her plans to become the best thief in the Star Lands. In one of her early burgling efforts, she meets Sly Boots, a white boy whose parents are ill and who offers Quicksilver a home in exchange for help. Then she meets Anastazia, an ancient witch who turns out to be the older version of Quicksilver herself. They all travel back in time to try to neutralize the First Ones, who are terrorizing witches using the human agency of the Wolf King. Plot inconsistencies aside, it’s a storyline that’s as stale as rolls from Pompeii. Quicksilver is a dim, unappealing protagonist whose emotional range mostly runs the gamut from A (anger) to B (brash). Fox, Quicksilver’s “monster”—a cross between a familiar and a daemon from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy—is an indefatigable vulpine deus ex machina, as all plot obstructions are resolved by his changing into whatever shape is necessary to accomplish the task. Right on schedule, characters turn traitor, die, or sacrifice themselves for the good of all.
Tedious and derivative. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242773-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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