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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
Visiting grandkids this weekend, Gabe wanted us to read this to him. (He'd not read any of the others...) While it had some mature content (? "Free Bra Inspection" ?), I can see that these books would be great for RELUCTANT readers. The vocabulary is high, and the concepts are abstract, but Gabe (in first grade) was able to understand most of it, and was highly engaged. Me, not so much... For kids, I'd give it 3.5 stars. For me, I'd give it 2 stars.
adventurous
funny
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was pretty wild for a kids book
Best of the series. Origin story and back to basics formula. Basically Batman Begins but with Harold and George.
adventurous
emotional
informative
Really?? The whole series perhaps didn't happen because of a time travel (banana cream pie) paradox? In fact, the whole earth is destroyed, unless Tippy Tinkletrousers can save Captain Underpants? Stay tuned -- we'll all find out January 2013.
This one was much harder to follow than the others. Got way too convoluted.
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
The thing that makes Captain Underpants so brilliant, so funny, and so popular with so many readers is not (just) the potty humor, names like Warden Schmorden and Director Schmector, and paragraphs like:
"MY NAME IS NOT PROFESSOR POOPYPANTS!" screamed the angry villain. "That was a ridiculous name! So I changed it to Tippy Tinkletrousers!"
It's not (just) the interactive, patented FLIP-O-RAMA pages where the action scenes come to life. It's not (just) that the books often include comics by protagonists George and Harold, just the way third graders would write/draw them. Nor is it (just) the wildly inventive, stream-of-consciousness plots where anything a third-grader might imagine can happen without any concern for logical consistency.
No, the true brilliance lies in paragraphs like this one:
One brisk evening in late October, the entire prison was yawning with excitement. The prisoners had all gathered in the bleachers under a clear, moonlit sky, as the prison band played a slow, reverent, and deeply moving rendition of "Whoomp! (There It Is)". After everyone dried their eyes, Warden Gordon Bordon Schmordon stepped onto the stage to congratulate himself. He proudly bragged about his great humility, confessed his intense hatred of intolerant people, and spoke for hours about his legendary brevity.
Or the way that Pilkey constantly works in things like this description of George and Harold's mean principal's life in prison:
Poor Mr. Krupp. He had been locked up at the Piqua State Penitentiary for months, and the life of a jailbird just wasn't his thing. All day long he had people bossing him around. He ate nutritionally deficient, horrible-tasting meals in a filthy cafeteria. He got bullied constantly by a bunch of meat-headed thugs, and he spent his days doing menial "busy work" in an overcrowded, poorly ventilated sweatshop.
Mr. Krupp was told when to eat, when to read, and when to exercise. He even had to ask permission to go to the bathroom! He was constantly bombarded with pointless rules, ridiculous discipline, random searches, metal detectors, security cameras, and pharmaceuticals designed to make everyone compliant and docile. It was a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding.
Along with the running gags and the way he works in subtle layers of humor, like the newspaper article in this image, which is an actual article with itty bitty print:
A couple of the paragraphs in the middle of the article read:
. . . This guilty verdict ended the sensational scandal that stunned the world, received massive coverage in all of the news outlets, and interrupted the narrative flow of this book with a poorly drawn newspaper that contained a bunch of really tiny words.
Dr. Kent. C. Toogood, president of Doctors United Movement to Banish Tiny Words in the Story (D.U.M.B. T.W.I.T.S.) warned that illustrations containing small words can cause eye strain, which could lead to headaches, nausea, and ridiculous acronyms. . . .
As I said in my review of The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, "No one does stupid humor as intelligently as Dav Pilkey."
It's been six years since the last Captain Underpants book, though, and Pilkey seems to know his old audience has aged. This "Ninth Epic Novel" is significantly longer and denser than the previous ones, and is certainly not a beginning chapter book like the others. There is even a shift in tone and topic after the first part, with the large middle section of the book being less slapstick and fantastical, more grounded in the reality of its readers. I'm curious to know how those readers react to it; I, for one, obviously enjoyed it.
To say more about the convoluted time-travel plot that takes us to George and Harold's origin story gets into spoiler territory, so I won't.
"MY NAME IS NOT PROFESSOR POOPYPANTS!" screamed the angry villain. "That was a ridiculous name! So I changed it to Tippy Tinkletrousers!"
It's not (just) the interactive, patented FLIP-O-RAMA pages where the action scenes come to life. It's not (just) that the books often include comics by protagonists George and Harold, just the way third graders would write/draw them. Nor is it (just) the wildly inventive, stream-of-consciousness plots where anything a third-grader might imagine can happen without any concern for logical consistency.
No, the true brilliance lies in paragraphs like this one:
One brisk evening in late October, the entire prison was yawning with excitement. The prisoners had all gathered in the bleachers under a clear, moonlit sky, as the prison band played a slow, reverent, and deeply moving rendition of "Whoomp! (There It Is)". After everyone dried their eyes, Warden Gordon Bordon Schmordon stepped onto the stage to congratulate himself. He proudly bragged about his great humility, confessed his intense hatred of intolerant people, and spoke for hours about his legendary brevity.
Or the way that Pilkey constantly works in things like this description of George and Harold's mean principal's life in prison:
Poor Mr. Krupp. He had been locked up at the Piqua State Penitentiary for months, and the life of a jailbird just wasn't his thing. All day long he had people bossing him around. He ate nutritionally deficient, horrible-tasting meals in a filthy cafeteria. He got bullied constantly by a bunch of meat-headed thugs, and he spent his days doing menial "busy work" in an overcrowded, poorly ventilated sweatshop.
Mr. Krupp was told when to eat, when to read, and when to exercise. He even had to ask permission to go to the bathroom! He was constantly bombarded with pointless rules, ridiculous discipline, random searches, metal detectors, security cameras, and pharmaceuticals designed to make everyone compliant and docile. It was a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding.
Along with the running gags and the way he works in subtle layers of humor, like the newspaper article in this image, which is an actual article with itty bitty print:
A couple of the paragraphs in the middle of the article read:
. . . This guilty verdict ended the sensational scandal that stunned the world, received massive coverage in all of the news outlets, and interrupted the narrative flow of this book with a poorly drawn newspaper that contained a bunch of really tiny words.
Dr. Kent. C. Toogood, president of Doctors United Movement to Banish Tiny Words in the Story (D.U.M.B. T.W.I.T.S.) warned that illustrations containing small words can cause eye strain, which could lead to headaches, nausea, and ridiculous acronyms. . . .
As I said in my review of The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, "No one does stupid humor as intelligently as Dav Pilkey."
It's been six years since the last Captain Underpants book, though, and Pilkey seems to know his old audience has aged. This "Ninth Epic Novel" is significantly longer and denser than the previous ones, and is certainly not a beginning chapter book like the others. There is even a shift in tone and topic after the first part, with the large middle section of the book being less slapstick and fantastical, more grounded in the reality of its readers. I'm curious to know how those readers react to it; I, for one, obviously enjoyed it.
To say more about the convoluted time-travel plot that takes us to George and Harold's origin story gets into spoiler territory, so I won't.
The first Captain Underpants in years and years!
The beginning is rather slow and boring (uh-oh) and I began to fear that this would turn out to be Captain Underpants' contractual obligation album. Hang in there, dear readers! Once we go back in time and George and Harold take over the story line, phew! Laffs! Action! Fans of the series will be rewarded. I even laughed OUT LOUD in chapter 32.
The beginning is rather slow and boring (uh-oh) and I began to fear that this would turn out to be Captain Underpants' contractual obligation album. Hang in there, dear readers! Once we go back in time and George and Harold take over the story line, phew! Laffs! Action! Fans of the series will be rewarded. I even laughed OUT LOUD in chapter 32.
This book takes the reader back in time before George and Harold (who are on their way to prison) had created Captain Underpants and must rely on their own brain power to outwit the bullies.
A fun mix of story and pictures plus graphic novel style in parts.
This story tells how George and Harold met, became friends, why George wears a tie, etc. They have to beat the bully, the nephew of the school principal, to help their fellow kindergarteners.
As my son says, "What's not funny about a superhero in his underpants saving the world."
Plus there are funny gags and more. No wonder kids like this.
A fun mix of story and pictures plus graphic novel style in parts.
This story tells how George and Harold met, became friends, why George wears a tie, etc. They have to beat the bully, the nephew of the school principal, to help their fellow kindergarteners.
As my son says, "What's not funny about a superhero in his underpants saving the world."
Plus there are funny gags and more. No wonder kids like this.