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THE HYPNOTISTS

From the Hypnotists series , Vol. 1

There’s action aplenty, and belly laughs too—though the implication that benders have played significant roles in history...

An unsettling premise and wildly escalating threats jump-start Korman’s newest series.

Jackson Opus is uneasy about his ability to, sometimes, make people do exactly what he tells them to—until he’s invited to join a training program at the mysterious Sentia Institute, where he learns that he’s an uncommonly gifted member of a rare but not unknown breed of natural-born “mind-benders.” Initially dazzled by the glittering promises of world-changing powers offered by Sentia’s founder, Elias Mako, Jax soon gets the feeling that Mako has a hidden agenda. That feeling becomes a certainty after Jax meets the Sandman’s Guild, an underclass of benders struggling with the ability’s addictive lure, and records a video for, supposedly, experimental purposes that hypnotizes anyone who sees it. Despite such tongue-in-cheek highlights as a guild meeting modeled on an AA support group and a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”–style scene in the wake of a string of badly worded hypnotic commands, the story takes a suspenseful turn. Jax discovers that his own parents have been implanted with a deadly posthypnotic command to keep him in line and that Mako has “bent” the leading U.S. presidential candidate.

There’s action aplenty, and belly laughs too—though the implication that benders have played significant roles in history and are among us now may leave readers feeling queasy. (Suspense fantasy. 10-13)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-545-50322-8

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013

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CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE TERRIFYING RETURN OF TIPPY TINKLETROUSERS

From the Captain Underpants series , Vol. 9

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

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GEORGIE SUMMERS AND THE SCRIBES OF SCATTERPLOT

A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes.

Eleven-year-old Georgie sets out to the rescue after seeing his dad snatched into thin air by a hideous figure.

In a confusing debut that reads like a first draft, the kidnapping impels the young slingshot expert to go from doggedly enduring vicious bullying at school to intrepidly plunging after his father through a portal to Scatterplot, an otherworldly realm where the memories of everyone in New York are uploaded by omnilingual Scribes. Classmates Apurva Aluwhalia (who’s cued South Asian) and Roscoe Harris (who reads Black and is confined to a role that’s largely limited to comic relief), each motivated by their own concerns, follow white-presenting Georgie on his adventure. In Scatterplot, they must remain alert for the “tribe” of “bad people” called Altercockers, formed by the exiled Rollie D. Meanwhile, Flint Eldritch, the menacing figure who was responsible for Georgie’s father’s disappearance, is bent on using the Aetherquill, a magical pen that can rewrite reality in unpredictable ways, to replace all those recorded memories with fake ones. In a story that’s marred by stilted dialogue, flat characterization, and awkward turns of phrase, Georgie and his friends, along with Scatterplot siblings Edie and Ore, embark on a quest to save both his father and the entire realm. The puss-oozing, misshapen villain Flint, crawling with bugs, does at least provide a memorably lurid element of horror. The novel ends with an abrupt cliffhanger.

A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes. (Fantasy. 10-13)

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025

ISBN: 9798886453164

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025

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