Comfortably familiar and well-executed series tropes make this funny romp one readers will want a sequel to.
Death’s 10-year-old son and a risky new friend take on a cabal of genocidal racists in this lighthearted debut.
It all starts when a troll escapes from the local reserve and eats Booger Reynolds in the school lunchroom. Jack Hallows’ determination to discover who let the creature out takes him and eager neighbor Nadine Jang (“I’ve read all the Sherlock Holmes and Sammy Keyes books and—”) straight into a mass exodus of inimical ogres and the like. Following the town’s hasty concentration into an evacuation center, there’s a general sorting of the hybrid human residents by sinister Fixers into those of Golden and Black bloodlines (according to what creatures are in their family trees). The Goldens, including a reluctant Nadine, are brusquely bussed off. Jack, a Black, follows. These dismal doings are related by a digressive narrator who turns out to be one of Jack’s absentee dad’s Reaper minions. Just to keep tongue firmly planted in cheek, Windsor also tucks in silly names (Urkel Underbottom is the requisite bully), clueless grown-ups, and numerous cookies while leaving out any mention of blood or gore. As it turns out, Nadine has a secret parent nearly as powerful as Jack’s, and by the end, the two have been trucked off to a very special boarding school called Magic Hallows. Jack appears white, and Nadine seems to be at least partly Asian.
Comfortably familiar and well-executed series tropes make this funny romp one readers will want a sequel to. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-939547-28-6
Page Count: 165
Publisher: Creston
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
