Pedal-to-the-metal fun, with moments both scary and triumphant to go with plenty of laugh-out-loud left turns.
A joyride turns into a madcap, world-saving scramble after a group of kids discovers a kidnapped accountant in the trunk of a car.
The rare 1964 Mustang convertible his mom’s fiance left in the garage proves too much temptation for 18-year-old Greg Decker—but a date night with his girlfriend, Marisa Ng, quickly takes a nightmarish turn when the car is towed. First, he has to call on his smart-mouthed 12-year-old sister, Charley, for funds, and she brings friends to the rescue party. Then the car comes out of impoundment with groggy Mitch Rosenfeld trapped inside by a pair of dimwitted hired thugs. It seems that Mitch not only stumbled upon a trove of evidence that media giant Pangea’s unscrupulous billionaire CEO, Alton Peck, has been a bad boy, but also that Pangea’s about-to-be-released household “digital life assistant” is pure, privacy-busting spyware. The chase is on. But while events careen along at a gratifyingly manic clip, it’s the smart, surprising cast (most evidently White, with names cueing some ethnic diversity) that really puts the shine on this epic romp: As the story unfolds, each reveals hidden depths of heart, courage, self-knowledge, conscience, or character. Even the thoroughly villainous Peck comes off in the end as more pathetically flawed than evil.
Pedal-to-the-metal fun, with moments both scary and triumphant to go with plenty of laugh-out-loud left turns. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-74324-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
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
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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