Chillingly plausible.
Disaster looms following an amateur hacker’s moment of carelessness.
Addressing several real, ominous trends, Fountain posits a dismal near future a few decades after an antibiotic-resistant version of scarlet fever has driven society into isolated family groups and allowed cybergatekeeper Global Connections to gain control of the world’s economy. Old enough at last to leave virtual learning behind, 14-year-old Jessica joins an incoming class of girls, some of whom had never met another child except online, at a physical boarding school. As if a heavy course load and challenges like learning to play team sports on real rather than virtual fields aren’t stressful enough, Jess is concerned for how her already strapped family is going to pay for the increasingly expensive medication needed to keep her little sister alive. This leads her to furtive experiments with illegal hacking techniques learned from an old book to explore Global Connections’ company files. Suddenly unable to get in touch with her family, she learns to her horror not only that the medication’s escalating cost had been directly linked to a decline in her family’s online purchases, but that thanks to her lack of expertise, now they’ve all been ruthlessly “deleted” by the corporation as security risks. Though the author engineers a resolution that will strike even uncritical readers as contrived and overly tidy, her premise and picture of cyberdependent daily life cut close enough to the bone to spur reflection and discussion. The cast reads White.
Chillingly plausible. (Dystopian science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781782692904
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pushkin Children’s Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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