What starts as a charming story morphs rather jarringly into a questionable golden-cape tug of war between an eighth-grader...
A frustrated eighth-grader would rather spend his days saving the world as an anointed superhero than deal with the reality of his life as a middle schooler, in this sequel to The Attack of the Alien Horde (2015).
Miles Taylor prepares for his first day as an eighth-grader after soaring through a summer of adventures as Gilded, his inherited golden-caped–superhero identity. The white 13-year-old is no longer the insecure new kid at school. He starts his second year at Chapman Middle School empowered with the secret of his superhero identity, a secret that he has only shared with Henry, his African-American best friend, and his father. The story begins as Miles grapples with his new-normal inner conflict: he’d really rather be the significant superhero full-time and not the insignificant eighth-grader who is daily bullied by the middle school football star. After disobeying his father by donning the golden cape to save the day for a nonsuperhero emergency of a multicar wreck, Miles and Henry are kidnapped by a cape-hungry U.S. Army general who somehow gets away with kidnapping minors and injecting them with truth serum. Venditti goes even darker when the general orders robots to kill Gilded and the pre-pubescent innocents. Higgins’ grayscale comics-style sequential panels periodically punctuate the prose narrative, sharing the storytelling mode.
What starts as a charming story morphs rather jarringly into a questionable golden-cape tug of war between an eighth-grader and a dry old general who’s mysteriously acquired a budget to create a robot army . (Adventure. 9-12)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0557-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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