The author leaves much to be explored and explained in future episodes, but fans of Unfortunate Events will be willing to...
In this promising series opener, a homicidal maniac stalks two children through a spooky old house that’s far larger inside than outside.
Newly moved in across the street, 10-year-old Fernie chases her errant cat through the front door of the mist-wreathed mansion one night, quickly losing herself in a seemingly endless tangle of dark halls and dim rooms. There she meets Gustav, a pale and perpetually somber age-mate who explains that the house is home to millions of unattached shadows—and that she is in immediate danger from the People Taker, evil minion of the Dark Country’s would-be ruler Lord Obsidian. The ensuing flight takes the two young people through a library containing all the books never written, a room filled with the shadows of all the dinosaurs that ever were and like repositories to a climactic struggle with the genial (as it turns out) villain at the lip of the Pit leading to the Dark Country. Along the way Fernie discovers that though shadows are a little more substantial within the house, even in the outside world they are not really attached to solid bodies and actually have volition and lives of their own. Who would have guessed? Margiotta opens each chapter with appropriately atmospheric scenes of big-eyed waifs against undulating backgrounds.
The author leaves much to be explored and explained in future episodes, but fans of Unfortunate Events will be willing to wait. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-448-45833-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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