George Beard (1)

Confession. This book was nowhere on my radar until Scholastic decided to stop publishing it and revoke the unsold/library copies. Thankfully, I have my own copy because I have two crazzzyyyy Dav Pilkey fans in my house. This was my very first Dav Pilkey book and the experience was quite entertaining. But I’m going to add my disclaimer right at the start: if you get offended at portrayals of mischievous kids spewing out bad words and pranking others, stay away from this book. It is meant show more for those who approach life with humour, who believe that children can differentiate between good and bad with the help of their guardians, and who understand why children’s fiction needn’t always be moralising.

The story is simple yet complicated.

Simple version: Ook and Gluk are two friends whose village is lorded over and plundered by a corporate fiend. They decide to learn Kung Fu and fight him back.
Complicated version: Ook and Gluk are two friends living in 500000 BC whose village is lorded over and plundered by a corporate fiend from 2224 AD. They decide to learn Kung Fu and fight him back.

So yeah, there's cave men, dinosaurs, time travel, corporate greed, fights for justice, village chiefs, company head honchos, robots, Kung Fu,... All in the same book. It's very light-hearted, and I think I can see why kids love Dav Pilkey. His characters do the silliest things, say the funniest stuff, and get away with the stupidest actions.

This book is supposed to have been written by George and Harold, two creative little kids who are the protagonists of the Captain Underpants series. So you'll see a lot of spelling mistakes in the dialogues, courtesy the "authors" being school going kiddos. While this could be a matter of concern for younger children, I feel that the correct target age group (8 ) will be able to realise where the errors lie and find the goof-ups funnier. It can also be used as a game: find all the typos made by George and Harold in this book. So I'm going to treat all the misspellings and grammatical flaws in the book as "potential learning opportunities". :P

Getting down to brass tacks now. Is the book racist? Scholastic claimed in its official statement that the book is "passively racist" in its portrayal of the two Asian characters. Well, unless you are aggravated by the slanting lines drawn to indicate their small eyes (and I was ok with this, just like I was ok with Gluk having an afro), there's nothing racist about the way they are drawn. As far as their role in the story goes, the elder character is shown to be a Kung Fu master and spouts aphorisms to bring enlightenment to Ook and Gluk. I'm still trying to figure out if that part can be perceived as racist; it appeared fine to me because it wasn’t written in an irritating way. More importantly, none of the portrayals are offensive to the culture. In fact, there is a respect towards the teachings of the Kung Fu master. So I'm pretty much left scratching my head over this decision to withdraw the book for "passive racism".

When I told my children that this book had been banned, both of them were shocked. On hearing the reason for the ban, they were even more stunned and went on to tell me everything they had learnt from the Kung Fu master and the other characters of this book. (Actually, even I was surprised at how many good ideas they had grasped from the book! I hadn’t looked at this book as one that imparted morals.)

In all honesty, there is far worse material out there that still gets published and popularized. (To provide you just one instance, go through [b:American Born Chinese|118944|American Born Chinese|Gene Luen Yang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1317066615l/118944._SX50_.jpg|114515], which is among the most racist books I've seen. It's outright offensive. And it still gets accolades.) And this funny little book, which talks of friendship, cooperation, sustaining natural resources and peaceful conflict resolution while being hilarious, will no longer be an option for children. Sad state of affairs, really.

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Ook and Gluk are cavemen in the year 500,001 BC. When an evil corporation from the year 2222 AD shows up and starts pillaging their resources and enslaving the cavepeople, Ook and Gluk head into the future to save the day. It's a madcap action-adventure comic book with tons of potty humor. Written by Dav Pilkey as if it had been written by 2 fourth-grade boys, the comic is rife with misspellings and chock full of fun. I wouldn't be surprised if it inspires young readers to create their own show more comics.

Okay, I admit that I had the knee-jerk grownup reaction when I first opened this book: "Ugh, all the words are misspelled! When does the REAL book begin?"

Yeah, and then I let go of that and just had a monstrously fun reading experience. It's books like this that turn kids ON to reading. This will be a super choice for fans of Captain Underpants and silly, funny books.

More on the blog: http://www.abbythelibrarian.com/2010/11/adventures-of-ook-and-gluk-giveaway.html show less

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 show more 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!"). show less

This graphic novel is written by the author of the Captain Underpants series, and it makes the Captain Underpants books look tasteful and refined. The Adventures of Ook and Gluk is filled with potty jokes, fighting scenes, misspellings, and bad grammar. Plus, the storyline is somewhat improbable - cavemen time travel to the future, learn kung fu, and fight a corporate bad guy who is stealing their trees.

But every night last week, when I sat down to read a chapter of it to my sons (ages 6 show more and 9), they were snuggled right up beside me, one on each side. And I found the younger one re-reading the "funniest" parts to himself. So, thanks, Dav Pilkey! Anything that gets my kids reading is good with me! show less