Class-pet capers with a sassy new style.
A lovable hamster moonlights as a superhero.
Once the students depart Sunnyview Elementary, Turbo, the official pet hamster of Classroom C, leaves his palace (don’t call it a cage!) to become his evil-thwarting, sunshine-yellow-cape–clad alter ego, Super Turbo. Wandering the corridors on a snow day, Super Turbo discovers that he’s not the only powerful pet at Sunnyview; he soon befriends Great Gecko, Wonder Pig (a guinea pig), the Green Winger (a parakeet), Professor Turtle, Boss Bunny, and Fantastic Fish. The menagerie forms the Superpet Superhero League just in time to face off against Whiskerface, a megalomaniacal mouse (with delusions of rat grandeur) planning to take over the school with his rodent army, the Rat Pack. Can Super Turbo and his friends save their beloved school? Originally published in 2016 as a black-and-white graphic-novel hybrid, this new edition features an entire revamp from cover to cover, transitioning its prose sequences to comic panels, changing its illustrator, and adding a zippy full-color palette to its art. Powers (previously writing under the pseudonym Lee Kirby) has reworked his storytelling, condensing it to fit Costanza’s tidy, simply rendered panels but otherwise leaving the general plot points intact. Bank on this wisely wrought update to have a wide appeal to fans of Ben Clanton’s Narwhal and Jelly or Andy Runton’s Owly series. Sequel Super Turbo vs. the Flying Ninja Squirrels publishes simultaneously.
Class-pet capers with a sassy new style. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7447-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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
Lively fun with animal friends.
Has Plum’s pep deserted him?
Several animals from the Athensville Zoo are on their way to visit an elementary school. Overconfident Itch the ningbing (an Australian marsupial), unaware that zookeeper Lizzie will be doing all the talking, looks forward to “lecturing eager young minds.” Plum, the usually chipper peacock, on the other hand, is anxious—maybe the schoolchildren won’t like him or he’ll get lost. So when they arrive at the school to find the students have been sent home due to a blizzard, Plum is relieved. The animals are left in a school gym for the night until three self-important class mice free them. Itch heads for the library to meet the learned turtle, but Plum reluctantly explores with his friends. When his anxiety peaks, they reassure him, and when the mice reject Meg, another peacock, as “borrrring” and uncool, they buoy her as well before everyone comes together to save Itch, who finds himself outside and stranded in a snowdrift. Unlike Leave It to Plum (2022), this is not a mystery, and the relationship focus shifts from Lizzie to the rodents, but the pace is brisk, and sequel seekers will be pleased to revisit familiar characters (if dismayed that Itch’s longing for knowledge leads to his downfall). In Phelan’s engaging grayscale pen-and-wash illustrations, Lizzie has short curly hair; text and art cue her as Latine.
Lively fun with animal friends. (how to draw Plum) (Chapter book. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-307920-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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