Like a comedian repeating the same joke louder each time: at first funny, then annoying; finally, just sad.
Harry Potter meets Diary of a Wimpy Kid in an initially witty debut that ultimately collapses.
Seventh-grader Max Spencer isn’t athletic, clever, brave or particularly kind, and he sure isn’t popular. But he is the long-lost heir of the arch-sorcerer who created the Codex of Infinite Knowability, which only Max can read. Inaccessible in our magic-free dimension, the Codex’s powerful spells are coveted by the mages of other realms; to retrieve it, they enlist the most vicious flesh-devouring monster known: Princess the Destroyer, the eponymous bad unicorn. The setup cleverly skewers common fantasy tropes, and delightfully gruesome vignettes of mayhem add extra spice. Though wildly uneven, the gags fly so rapidly that some are bound to provoke snickers. Unfortunately, Max has been rendered as such a convincing loser that it’s hard to root for him as a hero; his friends are shallow clichés and offensive stereotypes, and the remaining characters are merely walking punch lines. Identifying target readers isn’t easy; the protagonists’ ages (and the proclivity for crude humor) suggest a middle school audience, who will be baffled by plot twists relying upon the mechanics of ’80s-style arcade and tabletop games (let alone by the Al Gore jokes). The clunky, stilted prose is littered with $20 vocabulary. And when the many rambling discursions eventually converge to a genuinely gripping climax, too many storylines are simply dropped, apparently forgotten.
Like a comedian repeating the same joke louder each time: at first funny, then annoying; finally, just sad. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: April 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-5012-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
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
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
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