A lighthearted middle-grade treatment of new and beloved heroes.
After a fight with the Shocker results in Ms. Marvel, aka Kamala Khan, demolishing some New Jersey buildings, she is recruited into the Avengers Institute after-school program.
Helmed by principal Carol “Captain Marvel” Danvers, Kamala’s idol and frequent subject of her superhero fan fiction, the program aims to give young heroes the opportunity to explore their powers, build camaraderie with other superheroes, and cultivate much-needed superhero skills. Taught by such luminaries as Beast, She-Hulk (who gives the young heroes a primer on legal responsibilities), Ant-Man, and vice principal (and former villain) Quicksilver, the young Pakistani American hero builds skills and confidence, and she finds friendship with her teammates Miles “Spider-Man” Morales, who’s Afro-Latinx, and Doreen “Squirrel Girl” Green, who’s white. But when other classmates reveal their true, less-scrupulous intentions, Kamala and her friends find themselves in danger in their final academic decathlon. Fans will enjoy the situational humor and banter among characters and their mentors, such as Peter Parker with Miles, and slapstick antics. The story is related in a variety of formats including comics, social media posts, newspaper articles, letters, and text messages (sometimes unclear and at other times revealing too much); it may be hard for some Marvel aficionados to suspend disbelief. Though familiarity with characters’ backstories is not absolutely required, readers new to the franchise may be a little lost without some background knowledge. Readers also meet Kamala’s family, imam Sheikh Abdullah, and friend Nakia; all are Muslim, and some dispense advice based on Islamic stories and sayings.
A lighthearted middle-grade treatment of new and beloved heroes. (Graphic/adventure hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-58725-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style.
A summer vacation turns out to be anything but relaxing for Greg and a teeming horde of Heffleys.
Gramma declines the offer of a grand birthday celebration, saying that “what would make her REALLY happy is if everyone else went to Ruttyneck Island”—though she prepares individual packs of her legendary meatballs. (“You knew exactly how much Gramma likes you by how many meatballs you got.”) A gaggle of Heffley relatives and a dog stuff themselves into a small beach house, where overcrowding, personality conflicts, and simmering resentments become just some of the ingredients in a rolling boil of sitcom-style catastrophes, not to mention questionable decisions ranging from leaving the kids to make dinner unsupervised to labeling a cooler “HUMAN ORGANS” to keep random passersby from helping themselves. As usual, Greg supplies the setups in poker-faced journal entries interspersed with black-and-white drawings of slouched figures bearing frowny expressions of dismay or annoyance to cue the laffs. Gramma, it eventually turns out, not only (unsurprisingly) has plans of her own, but is also keeping a shocking secret about those meatballs. To go with the knee-slapping set pieces, Kinney slips in a tasty bit of family lore about how Greg’s parents met, plus droll takes on such low-hanging comedy fruit as restaurant manners, viciously competitive board games, and social media influencers (Greg being one, albeit with zero followers, and his Aunt Veronica’s little dog being another, with 3.8 million).
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781419766954
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 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
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