Mildly entertaining.
An incident over summer break saddles a Colorado sixth grader with an apparent curse in this debut, which was originally published as a Kickstarter project in 2021.
Life sometimes throws curveballs, or so Matt’s dad says, but this one’s a doozy. Right after pulling a pretend (but all-too-effective) karate move on his neighbor Jenna and breaking her collarbone, a long series of odd accidents chronically leave Matt with one or more broken toes. This not only earns him unwanted notoriety in middle school as the latest kid to catch the legendary Curse but also threatens his place on the traveling soccer team. Eicheldinger tucks in daffy cartoon spot art, kits his protagonist out with an exaggeratedly aggressive but steadfastly loyal fake girlfriend, and works hard to make this a lightweight tale about overcoming physical pain and solving problems with the help of pals, but the tale contains some questionable elements. Notably, there’s an episode in which Matt and his best friend flood the bedroom of a bully who’s repeated third grade three times. Two older adult characters are presented as figures for mockery: a soccer coach who reads as alcoholic (although this is not acknowledged) and a substitute teacher who’s first introduced as spitting at Matt’s car while behaving erratically in the street. Notwithstanding happy endings both on and off the soccer field, such sour notes may leave readers with mixed reactions. The cast is cued white.
Mildly entertaining. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781524888695
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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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