The Adventures of Ookk and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen of the Future (2010)

From the creators of Captain Underpants, we have the Adventures of Ook and Gluk, two cavemen who befriend a dinosaur, oust the evil mayor of their town (Caveland, Ohio), are enslaved by the mayors' progeny from the futre, travel through time, learn Kung Fu, and save the world. It's a mighty big story to tell.
George Beard and Harold Hutchins, the fictional creators of Captain Underpants bring this comic book to life, with crude doodle drawings (including fantastic flip pages that animate action scenes), a typeset that resembles the hand written scrawls of an elementary school student, hilarious misspellings (e.g., atenshon, department, polushun) and the requisite fart humor. Kids in grades 3-5 will love this book, although their parents might be less than pleased with the level of humor and the helpful guide at the back that explains how to speak Cavemonics ("It fun! It easy! It annoy Grown-ups!"). ( )

Like an old version of super diaper baby ( )

So, the conceit here is that, like The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, this is another comic book written by George and Harold, the stars of Captain Underpants.

Ook and Gluk are two cave kids in 500,001 BC who like to annoy their evil chief. After defeating the chief, the big trouble begins because the chief finds that one of his descendants has built a time portal from 2222 AD and is using it to steal the prehistoric world of all the natural resources that no longer exist in the future.

Ook and Gluk and their baby dinosaur, Lily, go to the future to defeat them and end up learning the ways of kung-fu.

Lots of great lessons from martial arts here--

The mind is stronger than the flesh. It can defeat any opponent, no matter how strong.

The best fighters do not show their anger. The wisest warrior wins without a battle.

AND! Lots of flip-o-rama action-- 9 different flip-o-ramas.

Now, as this was "written" by George and Harold the spelling and grammar are awful (not helped by the fact that half the characters speak caveman). I don't mind this in concept. If we fight for realism in our books, I think we need to fight for it at all ages-- younger kids don't spell perfectly and don't speak perfectly. I have no problem with books aimed at younger kids mirroring this reality. Especially because I think most kids get it-- the know it's wrong, but at the same time it's reassuring that not everyone is a perfect speller.

But, as an adult reader, the spelling is a little annoying and sometimes I had to think about a word before realizing what it was supposed to be (reading out loud helps with this.)

More than anything though, as fun as this book was, and as much as the kids I know like it, the kids have only one question, and it's a question I share-- WHEN DO WE GET NEW CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS?!

see all my reviews at www.jenrothschild.com ( )

Ook and Gluk are pests to the chief of Caveland, Goppernopper. Ook and Gluk are best friends and always play from when they were babies and when they became bigger. They run away from the dinosaur Mog-Mog. Then when they throw the Mog-Mog into quicksand they realize that she just wants to care for her baby. Soon it is up to Ook and Gluk to save the villagers of Caveland againstletting them work for the evil Goppernopper as slaves or go to other centuries. ( )

This book is really funny. I laughed a lot while I read this book, especially when the baby dinosaur puked in the guy's mouth!! ( )