Dav Pilkey

George and Harold hoped their misadventures with Captain Underpants (their principal who they hypnotized into being a living version of their comic book superhero) were over. They wanted their caped crime fighter to stay on the written page. Thanks to their carelessness with the hypnoring, however, that was not likely. Any time Principal Krupp hears snapping fingers he transforms into the brave Captain Underpants, fighting crime in his underwear. The villains must be as ridiculous as he is, show more and in this book they are the talking toilets of the title.

The craziness begins with a prank and a copy machine. Harold and George are forbidden from entering the invention convention, and to get revenge, they sabotage every entry in the contest except one - Melvin's, because he catches them in the act and they bribe him to silence. After the convention fails miserably, and the whole school is wet and dirty and miserable from all the science inventions backfiring on them, Mr. Krupp sentences George and Harold to some serious detention. Melvin ratted them out.

When Mr. Krupp disappears in the teacher's office, the boys can't resist the temptation to sneak out. They want to get back at Melvin. He invented a copy machine that he claims takes two-dimensional pictures and creates three-dimensional objects. The boys don't believe him, though; they expect it's just a super copier, and they are going to use it to make copies of the latest issue of their hand-drawn Captain Underpants comic.

The story is about evil talking toilets that eat people. Of course, the copier does create three-dimensional objects, so as soon as they use it, evil talking toilets begin popping out of the machine and running rampant around the school. They start eating teachers, but fortunately one of them snaps her fingers at them, and Captain Underpants emerges. With the help of a robot that Harold and George draw and copy out of the special copier, they manage to defeat the evil toilets and their leader, the Turbo Toilet 2000.

This series has a zany sense of humor that can be slapstick or a little more clever and tongue-in-cheek (like chapters titled The Invention Convention Detention Suspension), and the author is clearly winking at the reader throughout the story. Captain Underpants is a great send up of more traditional superheroes, the plot is always fast-paced and engrossing to children, and the dialogue is enjoyable. Some readers (always adults) object to the example George and Harold set. They are certainly not model children as far as good behavior goes. However, kids love them. A line towards the beginning of the book offers a great perspective on these two pranksters: they may get cause trouble, but they are wonderful kids at heart. That's how I perceive them: mischievous, inclined to take their jokes too far, but just kids who are good beneath their rampant sense of humor. I like these books, and I believe it's fine for kids to read about rascally children who buck authority in a silly manner and sometimes get away with it. Don't take these books too seriously, and instead enjoy the hijinks, hilarity, and over the top villains and plots. show less

After years of seeing this book appear on Banned Books lists, I finally read it myself. Two mischief-makers, George and Harold, write a comic strip called Captain Underpants; principal Krupp, unsurprisingly, is not their #1 fan. When he blackmails them into good behavior, they send away for a 3D Hypno Ring, and hypnotize the principal into believing that he is Captain Underpants. Adventures ensue!

Dav Pilkey made me laugh a few times (see quotes below), and honestly this seems like good fun show more to me. Lots of kids - Dav included - write and draw comics, and it seems pretty harmless to me. A great read-aloud.

Quotes

George and Harold were usually responsible kids. Whenever anything bad happened, George and Harold were usually responsible. (Chapter 1)

Soon, the cafeteria food came to life. "I am the inedible hunk!" (Chapter 3) show less

George Beard and Harold Hutchins are the 4th grade pranksters at their school. They change school signs around to say funny things, they fill cheerleader pom poms with black pepper, and they fill footballs with helium. Perhaps their favorite pastime, though, is writing comic books. They steal into the school office and make copies to sell when the secretary's back is turned, then sell their comics to the other kids at the school. Their best superhero is Captain Underpants, who fights with show more Wedgie Power. "Tra-la-laaa!"

Their mean school principal, Mr. Krupp, really dislikes Harold and George for all the chaos they cause in his school. He blackmails them into behaving, but George and Harold find a way to fight back. Mr. Krupp never knows what hits him.

Oh my goodness. What a fun book! I was giggling away reading this by myself at the age of 33. I would have laughed to the point of tears as a child. But then, I've always loved a good fart joke. Unsophisticated, I know, but farts happen. Might as well get a laugh out of them.

George and Harold are a couple of comic geniuses. They have a talent for getting into trouble but their real talents lie in getting out of trouble. Their imagination and creativity seems to be limitless!

And what they do to Mr. Krupp... I loved it! What kid, no matter how well-behaved, doesn't dream of rebelling against some authority figure? If we're honest, we never lose those dreams. It feels so good to see someone acting out like that, even if it is just in the pages of a book.

There is one chapter that features flip-o-rama. I had such a good time with this! The book has reached a crashing climax and all of a sudden you get to sort of activate it yourself and watch the action take place. It was a lot of fun and I played around with it longer than I should probably admit to. When my husband got home, I made him watch as I flipped the pages to make the illustrations look animated. He even had to chuckle a little and admit that it was "pretty good."

I really, really enjoyed this and recommend it for parents who don't mind the potty humor. For parents struggling to find books for their sons to read, this would be a great one to try. show less

"in a long-ago time, when long-ago peoples / were building cathedrals and raising up steeples, / they crafted stone creatures and set them on perches / to guard and protect and watch over churches." And so begins the rhyming text of this beautiful and unexpectedly moving picture-book, in which the gargoyles, their purpose long forgotten by their human creators, find themselves reviled as ugly and demonic. Their resultant grief - "when the gargoyles heard these words that were spoken, / their show more stony old hearts became crumbled and broken. / then storms rumbled in, and their eyes filled with rain, / and in stillness they stayed, alone and in pain" - is observed by some passing angels, who stop to comfort them, leading them on magical nighttime flights. The story concludes with an invocation of God's blessing, particularly for all who are alone or heartbroken - particularly for gargoyles...

Originally published in 1996, and just republished in this 2016 edition, God Bless the Gargoyles is a lovely book, one which possesses a keen sense of morality, but which never allows its narrative to be overwhelmed by any sort of moralizing. A number of important lessons - having compassion for the lonely and outcast; looking beyond external appearances, in judging others - are woven naturally into this tale of lonely and misunderstood creatures, mistreated (as so many beings are) by humanity. I appreciated the fact that there is a religious and spiritual background here - although we are a nation of believers in the US, mainstream children's publishing often makes the religious life of our children invisible - but that the didactic purpose of the book has wider applications. This is also a beautiful book, visually speaking, and I thought the artwork - the deep purples and greens of the nighttime skies, the vibrant colors of the stained glass - perfectly captured the feeling of the text. Recommended to anyone looking for children's books with a more spiritual element, or for stories that emphasize compassion for others. show less