Despite the manufactured suspense, this may draw middle-grade students of accounting history to the series.
Rumors of a new kind of magic draw young Fabrizio and his aging master, Mangus, to Renaissance Venice in this follow-up to Murder at Midnight (2009).
Fabrizio and Master Mangus are dispatched by the king of their town of Pergamontio, who has heard of a mysterious new way of making money, explained in a book by Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli. Superstitious Fabrizio discovers a world of seemingly magical wonders as he shepherds the increasingly sick and feeble Mangus through the cosmopolitan city of canals. They are pursued, for no evident reason aside from drumming up tension, by the king’s tax collector and an equally sinister confederate. Fabrizio quickly falls in with Bianca, a fellow orphan who serves as a local guide and who has an Egyptian gondolier (the one character with a speaking part who doesn’t present as White) on call for transportation. She even turns out to be trained in the new magic, otherwise known as double-entry bookkeeping. Some chases, captures, escapes, and nighttime boat rides provide at least a framework of a plot, but along with providing no real rationale for the bad guys’ pursuit, they offer Mangus no active role beyond prisoner in need of rescue and barely sketch in the distinctive setting. The author seems chiefly interested in introducing readers to Pacioli, a real historical figure, before finishing off with a happy ending…for the good guys, at least.
Despite the manufactured suspense, this may draw middle-grade students of accounting history to the series. (author’s note) (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-32197-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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
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
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