Despite a sense of playacting, this is a gently adventurous and luxuriously detailed romp.
A princess requests and receives a country for her 13th birthday.
With her very own country, Princess Juniper will be able to interact with others in informal, casual ways—kind of. She gathers kids to journey to her “brand-new kingdom,” where she’ll be queen and they’ll be her subjects. But instead of their scheduled departure, the kids are rushed off the palace grounds at night, hearing distant battle sounds and directed by the king to a place on no map. The hidden basin in the mountains is idyllic, with a waterfall, fruit trees, and bedrooms carved in the rock. Juniper loses her rule—for withholding information about the war back at home—and mounts an exciting scheme to recover it. However, this text isn’t anti-royalist: the other kids are her “friends” and “family” but still her “subjects”; and if a ruler’s heart is in the right place, it’s fine to demand heaps of work (and work itself is romanticized). Luxuries (“silks and scarves and paints and powders”) and sumptuous meals (“crispy cheese sticks”; “fresh sage griddle cakes topped with sweet butter and honey syrup”) evoke stories from a bygone era. Unfortunately, matching that old-fashioned sensibility is a “notoriously secretive tribe” of “obscure origin and uncertain habitation” and “wildness”—a stereotypical, Romany-esque portrayal regrettably poised for a larger role in the sequel.
Despite a sense of playacting, this is a gently adventurous and luxuriously detailed romp. (Fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-17151-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
File under “laugh riot.”
A rogue spell-check program’s bid to transform all life-forms into that eminently useful office item, the paper clip, touches off a fresh round of lunar lunacy.
Predicated on the entirely reasonable premise that eliminating all spelling and grammar errors everywhere would logically lead to the necessity of exterminating carbon-based life in the universe, this third series entry combines high stakes with daffy banter and daring exploits. CheckMate—a chipper, jumped-up editing program—has invented the Transmogratron, a giant laser that will fulfill its ultimate goals in both the cyber world and “meatspace.” Facing challenges as random as prankster lunar unicorns and a disarmingly motherly Motherboard, scowling First Cat joins a motley crew of diversely carbon- and silicon-based allies, led by the pearlescent Queen of the Moon. They’re in a race to the finish—diverted occasionally by, for instance, a relentlessly punny comic-book interlude featuring a pair of literal and figurative Pool Sharks. They ultimately triumph thanks to teamwork and moxie. Following a celebratory party and toasts to “new friends…and steadfast comrades” (and, of course, “MEOW”), the story’s energetic, brightly colored panels close with a reveal of the next volume. (“I always hate it when comics end by announcing a sequel. SO CRINGE!” declares an authorial stand-in.) It can’t come too soon.
File under “laugh riot.” (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063315280
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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