A perky marketing ploy—but not a piece of literature.
This “debut” blends satire and allegory as well as TV characters and literature.
The horror of masculinity in the violently gender-segregated world of Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy meets the early feminist-separatist vision of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915). Set that strange fan fiction in a Candyland-scape, and you’ve got the branded television content that is this title. It opens with 12-year-old Penn (black, according to the cover illustration) wondering when he will turn into a Grabagorn, “enormous and strong, with icy blue skin and a set of horns.” Penn lives in a desolate land without women, who apparently were all killed by dragons. But then he discovers three girls caught in a trap and learns that the girls and women haven’t been killed but in fact escaped. Penn and his new friend Kristy (white on the cover) go on an adventure to restore gender equality through mindfulness and communication. Credited ghostwriter Mlynowski tries to deliver a very specific message about feminism while reinforcing all sorts of unhelpful stereotypes. Apparently men left to their own devices are flatulence-obsessed brutes incapable of asking for directions, and women are naturally cooperative, anger-averse nurturers prone to uptalking. A cameo referencing a gay character from the TV series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt implies that gay men are a kind of third sex who prefer the company of women.
A perky marketing ploy—but not a piece of literature. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-53575-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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