A promising, fast-paced series opener.
Twins Pew and Basket Church find clues to their pasts and a dangerous foe in a literally Revolutionary setting.
Upon leaping through a time portal to escape 12 years of misery in the misleadingly named Sweet Loveliness Home for the Nurturing Development of De-Parented Children, the intrepid foundlings land back in 1777—not far from where George Washington, in the wake of the disastrous Battle of Brooklyn Heights, is on the verge of throwing in the towel. Can they convince him to change his mind? Their efforts are complicated by a hidden treasure lying at the end of a trail of riddles, a megalomaniacal fellow time traveler out to manipulate history rather than preserve it, and the fact that Pew is a Black boy and Basket is a white girl. A second, ill-managed time jaunt results in their hands being swapped on their bodies. Although this mishap leads to sibling strife—“Stop picking your nose with my fingers!”—the course of history is righted by the end of an expertly crafted whirl of chases, betrayals, escapes, and revelations. A flimsy rationale for not asking a grateful Washington to abolish slavery in return for the twins’ game-changing help sounds a sour note, but the parade of (more or less) accurately rendered historical persons and events, several tantalizing mysteries, and the smart and resourceful protagonists will be enough to carry readers through multiple sequels. Schweizer’s occasional illustrations add humor and liveliness.
A promising, fast-paced series opener. (historical notes, bibliography) (Adventure. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780316447010
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2024
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
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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