A raucous romp from twin perspectives with something different to say.
Two brothers team up with their longtime bestie and a peculiar new friend for a high-stakes, out-of-this-world adventure.
One day a few years ago, twins Oakley and Cypress Young’s parents mysteriously vanished. That summer they met Jaz Demetrio, who’d recently lost her mother. The three Black-presenting tweens (Jaz’s father is Italian American) have been inseparable ever since. Aspiring filmmaker Cypress, Oak, who's a wholehearted believer in the otherworldly, and well-traveled military brat Jaz collaborate on shooting movies while also investigating their beloved Atlanta neighborhood. Evil Orion Industries is buying up properties, bringing about sudden changes. While filming at an old amusement park—now an Orion construction site—Oak flies off his skateboard and disappears into a portal on Owl Rock, a large granite rock formation, kicking off an extraterrestrial mystery involving cruel businessman Hancock Orion. The dual first-person narration shifts between the point of view of Cypress, who’s desperately trying to find his brother and navigate issues of rapid, world-destroying gentrification, and Oak, who befriends an alien who’s reluctant to be part of the world-conquering plot. By the time the brothers reunite to save the day with music and magic meteorites, their understanding of how to be part of a team while still maintaining their individuality is forever changed for the better. Epigraphs featuring quotes from Oak’s favorite superhero, the Silver Surfer, drive home the cosmic scope of their discoveries.
A raucous romp from twin perspectives with something different to say. (map) (Science fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593696385
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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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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