A potentially interesting setting is undermined by a thin plot and underdeveloped characters.
A young girl finds herself involved with the mythical barbegazi.
Eleven-year-old Tessa lives in a village in Austria and competes on an alpine ski racing team, but she is currently saddened over the ill health of her grandmother and the recent death of her grandfather. Before he died, Opa told her about the mythical, thought-to-be-extinct barbegazi—mountain elves—and she is determined to see one. When Tessa does encounter a barbegazi named Gawion, she eventually learns that Gawion’s sister has been abducted, and Tessa determines to help. The thin, formulaic plot gets no support from its underdeveloped, inconsistent characters. Protagonist Tessa is sad about Oma’s frailty, but there’s no elaboration of their relationship, and for a ski racer, Tessa is extraordinarily uncompetitive. Plot developments are decidedly convenient: Adults are absent on flimsy pretexts, and Gawion speaks Tessa’s language (and all others, including Dog). Important plot points are mentioned early and feel off-the-cuff, with no subsequent prompts, guaranteeing that readers will be confused later on. The subplot of what went wrong with a formerly close friendship is unexplained in both its advent and resolution. The backstory of the barbegazi overexplains its connection to the present story, and the barbegazi family interactions are too much like human parents and teenagers to be innovative. The cast seems to be all white.
A potentially interesting setting is undermined by a thin plot and underdeveloped characters. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63163-377-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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
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
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