On pages designed to look as if they come from a grubby notebook, an eight-year-old explorer records and illustrates fantastical adventures that start (and perhaps stay, to judge from internal hints) in his own backyard. In headlong fashion, Charlie finds himself struck by lightning, barreling down a swollen stream, wrestling a crocodile and then riding a steam-powered mechanical rhino (diagram included) into a fight with a huge serpent. Subsequently captured by a gorilla who takes him as a pet to a city of silverbacks, he proceeds to learn their speech (including 50 different words for “banana”), to become their king and to save them from an invading horde of mandrills. Eventually he slips away, only to find himself literally hurled into a new set of simultaneously published escapades with the female Perfumed Pirates of Perfidy ($5.99, ISBN: 978-0-385-75137-7; PLB: $11.99, ISBN: 978-0-385-75138-9). Charlie inserts plenty of quick sketches, maps and even the odd eyeball or other artifact to prove that it’s all true—not that readers would ever doubt. Whether he’ll get back home in time for tea is anybody’s guess. (Fantasy. 8-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-375-84970-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2007
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
The author of Babe, the Gallant Pig (1985) offers another winner with this tale of a bright pig and her canny young keeper “training” a spoiled princess. When Princess Penelope demands a pig for her eighth birthday, her over-indulgent father requires every pig keeper in the country to assemble with a likely porcine candidate. The princess settles on Lollipop, who turns out to be the sole possession of penniless orphan Johnny Skinner. As only Johnny can get Lollipop to sit, roll over, or poop outdoors, soon lad and pig are comfortably ensconced together in a royal stall—at least until the pig can be persuaded to respond to the Princess’s commands. It’s only the beginning of a meteoric rise for Johnny, and for Lollipop too, as the two conspire to teach the princess civilized manners, and end up great favorites of the entire royal family. Barton (Rattletrap Car, p. 504, etc.) captures Penelope’s fuming, bratty character perfectly in a generous array of line drawings, and gives Lollipop an expression of affectionate amusement that will win over readers as effortlessly as it wins over the princess and her parents. Move over, Wilbur. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1269-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
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