A lighthearted and accessible bit of metafiction.
An improbable evil overtakes a neighborhood park.
Best friends Shackleton Jones and Amelia Miles are eagerly anticipating their first sleepover. While headed to Amelia’s place to pick her up, Shackleton and his dad encounter a neighbor in the park bemoaning their (absolutely average) noise level. In a stroke of silly foreshadowing, Shackleton notes that she’ll return in Chapter 12. Arriving at the Mileses’ abode, they discover that Amelia’s mom has overloaded her daughter’s backpack with an “inhaler, a book on how to survive in the wild, an air mattress, a night-light,” and more. The bag is so heavy that Amelia’s mom opts to carry it back to the Joneses’—but a massive rainstorm leaves the crew stranded mid-park, where they employ Amelia’s air mattress as a boat. If this weren’t fiasco enough, an enormous anaconda (and, eventually, its parents!) emerges from the deluge, and the kids must use their fledgling shoe-tying abilities to tie the snakes in knots. Shortly thereafter, the cranky neighbor, now transformed into villainous “Glam-Evil,” arrives to announce she’s placed a magical curse upon the park. Smith and Lador have crafted a playful, unpretentious adventure, quick to break the fourth wall for a laugh. The illustrations aptly capture characters’ personalities with quirky body shapes and funny facial expressions, but the initially well-established setting seems to get washed away as the floodwaters rise. Shackleton is pale-skinned and bespectacled; Amelia is brown-skinned.
A lighthearted and accessible bit of metafiction. (Graphic adventure. 7-10)Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9798217119738
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
What a wag.
What do you get from sewing the head of a smart dog onto the body of a tough police officer? A new superhero from the incorrigible creator of Captain Underpants.
Finding a stack of old Dog Mancomics that got them in trouble back in first grade, George and Harold decide to craft a set of new(ish) adventures with (more or less) improved art and spelling. These begin with an origin tale (“A Hero Is Unleashed”), go on to a fiendish attempt to replace the chief of police with a “Robo Chief” and then a temporarily successful scheme to make everyone stupid by erasing all the words from every book (“Book ’Em, Dog Man”), and finish off with a sort of attempted alien invasion evocatively titled “Weenie Wars: The Franks Awaken.” In each, Dog Man squares off against baddies (including superinventor/archnemesis Petey the cat) and saves the day with a clever notion. With occasional pauses for Flip-O-Rama featurettes, the tales are all framed in brightly colored sequential panels with hand-lettered dialogue (“How do you feel, old friend?” “Ruff!”) and narrative. The figures are studiously diverse, with police officers of both genders on view and George, the chief, and several other members of the supporting cast colored in various shades of brown. Pilkey closes as customary with drawing exercises, plus a promise that the canine crusader will be further unleashed in a sequel.
What a wag. (Graphic fantasy. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-58160-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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