More rousing fare for budding buccaneers and potential pacifists.
Denied one legendary treasure found in the series opener, rival pirates converge on a second one.
Separated and forced to flee from the golden trove found in Sea of Gold (2023), young Fish and his companions, Nate, Daniel, and Nora, are swept along in a three-way race to locate a fabled cargo of gems lost years ago. They stop off in Venice for chases, escapes, and a search for clues to the treasure’s location in a flooded library before heading onward to a small Greek island and a climactic tussle. Fitting nicely into the role of protagonist as he spends much of the tale struggling with conflicting loyalties and impulses, Fish also gets plenty of chances to play the hero: He shows off his exceptional skills as a diver and displays such an ability to avoid getting hurt while resolutely refusing to carry a weapon or fight back that he turns a whole pirate crew toward nonviolence. Still, the three treasure-hunting captains are each colorfully distinct in their own ways, and there’s much (nonfatal) cannon fire, swordplay, betrayal, and getting thrown overboard to carry the plot along briskly. Fish is a white boy from Ireland; passing mentions, for example, of pale or brown skin are the only clues in this entry to the cast’s racial makeup.
More rousing fare for budding buccaneers and potential pacifists. (Adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781419756856
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
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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