Exciting, inventive, and emotionally intelligent.
Eric “Doodles” King thinks the magic ink that brings monsters to life has been destroyed, but a powerful CEO is planning to use it to flood lower Manhattan and make a new Atlantis.
The exciting events of the 2022 series opener are months past; Eric’s new worry is beginning seventh grade at Tinsdale, a Manhattan private school, instead of returning to his old gifted and talented school with his friends. At Tinsdale, Eric is dubbed “Sketch” for his art skills and adopted by three popular kids. When he returns to Brooklyn and his dad’s house on weekends, he has trouble transitioning between worlds. At an age in which friends and identity are closely linked, Eric isn’t sure whether he’s “Doodles” or “Sketch,” and he makes some mistakes with his old friends. But when a serious new threat arises, Monster Club assembles again to fight King Neptune. Most chapters are told from Eric’s perspective, but some are about Neptune, and the epilogue focuses on Eric’s new friend Pete, with an ending that sets the stage for a third entry. New readers are given enough background information to follow along, but this work is best appreciated by those who’ve read the first book. The fight scenes with the monsters are joyous, and one especially dramatic, high-stakes action scene is perfectly paced. While Brickman, Eric’s monster creation, is heroic, Eric’s words are even more powerful. Eric is Jewish; secondary characters’ names signal ethnic diversity. Final art not seen.
Exciting, inventive, and emotionally intelligent. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780063136694
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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