Adventurous if not particularly venturesome.
Riddles, monsters, bullies, and buckets of slime challenge the Dungeoneer Academy trainees in their second quest.
Fresh from exploits in the opener’s Fungal Jungle, Green Team students find themselves in the frozen subterranean reaches of the Shimmering Shar, on the trail of a nefarious gang of academy washouts and facing all manner of hazards from deadly ice golems to a smothering avalanche of cheesy fries. Meanwhile the ongoing struggles of Coop Cooperson, the school’s only human, with schoolwork, envy of charismatic new student Kody, and foot-in-mouth awkwardness around girls add a substrate of more familiar challenges. Practically channeling a certain classic, the authors add a tin man and a witch—the latter, moody kobold Ingrid Inkheart, turns out to be the good sort—to the multispecies cast and set up wizardly hazards galore on the way to the climax. Monochrome illustrations on every spread both ease the visual weight of the narrative blocks and add comical reaction shots and banter to further lighten the load for newer readers. By the end, Coop has wrestled personal issues to a draw, inspired boggart teammate Dazmina to face up to her divorcing parents by reassuring her that her friends have her back, shown magnanimity by forgiving two repentant bullies, and even aced “Widdles and Wunes” (as the rhotacistic professor pronounces it). “Who can guess what’s next for Dungeoneer Academy?” Coop concludes. Well, one sequel at least, for sure.
Adventurous if not particularly venturesome. (Illustrated fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781665910712
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dizzyingly silly.
The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.
Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.
Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
SEEN & HEARD
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