There’s pleasurably messy, madcap humor, but the casually dismissive cultural representations are très désagréables.
When her parents aren’t looking, a girl and her toys go on secret-agent adventures in this duo of French graphic stories bound together for publication in the U.S.
Lola is convinced her perfectly ordinary stay-at-home dad, Robert Darkhair, is secret agent James Blond. Whether he is or not is almost irrelevant; what’s important is that mustachioed archvillain Max Imum believes it, too. Thus Lola dons a cape and mask (the former cut from her bedroom curtains) and hares off on a series of joyfully chaotic adventures to thwart the villain and rescue whichever parent has most recently been kidnapped. In both of the short tales collected here (“My Dad Is a Super Secret Agent” and “My Mom Is Lost in Time”), Lola is assisted by her cat and a collection of toys and drawings, most of which become person-sized and animate whenever her parents aren’t looking. The excitement proceeds at breakneck pace, as Lola and her friends are propelled from frying pan to fire and back to frying pan every few pages. The adventures, translated from the French, don’t make the trans-Atlantic hop altogether smoothly. One sequence is an extended homage to the Asterix comics that relies on familiarity with same. Nonstop silliness and lively use of the form will propel most readers through jokes lost in translation. Harder to overlook are the hackneyed representations of race, especially when mute “Mayans, Incas, or Aztecs” serve Max Imum, who threatens human sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl. Main human characters all seem to be White.
There’s pleasurably messy, madcap humor, but the casually dismissive cultural representations are très désagréables. (Graphic fantasy/adventure. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5458-0563-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Papercutz
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
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
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale.
After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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