An engaging and more mature installment in a children’s mystery series that has yet to miss.
Supernatural sleuth Dotty Morgan returns to track down some pesky gremlins in Martin’s middle-grade mystery.
Twelve-year-old Dotty Morgan is a seasoned supernatural sleuth in Elderton, North Carolina. In this third installment of her eponymous series, local boy Jimmy Grubbler pleads for her to protect his gremlin friends from a human aggressor. Dotty instead joins her girlfriend Hannah Matson and best friend, Parker Pose, in Greensboro for the former’s wrestling tournament and the latter’s fashion competition. While there, the friends realize that Jimmy may not be the only one with a gremlin problem: Weird accidents keep happening at Greensboro Fashion Week, and it’s up to Dotty to stop them from ruining her friend’s big moment. (“Reality exists independent of belief. If something is going on, I’ll find out.”) With Hannah’s irresponsible mother and her shady boyfriend in the mix, alongside suspects like famous designer Chadwell Pose’s assistant and contest coordinator Bunny Fingerhut, Dotty has her work cut out for her. Could gremlins really be the cause of the incidents at the fashion show? And could some sinister human be pulling the strings behind the scenes? This follow-up to The Case of the Zombie Ninjas (2024) presents a slightly more grown-up Dotty struggling with puberty, Hannah’s mother’s drug addiction, and homophobia alongside her usual paranormal opponents. These issues are neatly woven into the narrative, emerging organically without overwhelming the action. Martin makes a special effort to point out each character’s race, not just those of Dotty (who is Black) or her friends, which illustrates the author’s commitment to inclusion and representation. While the classic whodunit plot only occupies the middle third of the novel, and thus may leave hardcore mystery lovers wanting more, other readers will appreciate this deeper dive in Dotty’s daily life.
An engaging and more mature installment in a children’s mystery series that has yet to miss.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781961215092
Page Count: 212
Publisher: In A Bind Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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
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