The Adventures of Captain Underpants

I buy books for my four-year-old niece on a regular basis. The age appropriate ones I give to her immediately. The ones not so age-appropriate I keep until she's ready. In the meantime, I get the joy of reading them.

Captain Underpants has been banned for "offensive language and modeling bad behavior." It's hilarious that parents would be outraged in the first place. George and Harold aren't bad kids. They don't steal, or bully other kids for their lunch money. They're typical little boys, highly imaginative with a naughty streak. In fact, their virtues far outweigh their vices. They're creative, active, respectful kids. They have a code of honor, and they follow through on their promises instead of whining and blowing the whistle on show more mean Mr. Krupp's blackmail demands.

Let's also remember that these kids do not exist. They are characters in a book. So they like poo jokes? What little kid at some time find poo jokes unfunny? Name one!

Well written, funny, with hilarious illustrations that left me giggling in glee. I'll be handing this book over to my niece in a few years with no problem. This was a great book, and I'd rather she read this than turn on the television and watch shows featuring snarky, backtalking, snotty little child actors. In fact, I think I'll buy her the entire series.

I dare anyone to stop me. show less

NGL but when this book first came out I just rolled my eyes, thinking it was dumb, just something to pander to kids' potty humor. Then a while ago I watched the Captain Underpants movie on Netflix and... you know what? It was actually pretty clever and accessible to both kids and adults so I decided to give this book a chance.

One thing I didn't like was the mischief the MCs get up to. Mr. Krupp can be a real ass at times, but he IS provoked a lot to be fair, and his anger/annoyance is at times justifued. That aside, this is a pretty silly and goofy book.

This innocent-looking book is one of the most frequently challenged and it's not hard to see why from a quick read--the main characters are unabashed hellions who revel in chaos and upending authority; think the early Bart Simpson. They're not role models, but sometimes it's fun to skip the moral and just enjoy two little jerks going up against one even bigger jerk in the form of their principal. The book includes a creative feature in the 'Flip-O-Rama' pages, which provide the reader with some basic two-frame animation. I wish more books played with format and medium like this!

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 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. show more (Chapter 1)

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

George Beard and Harold Hutchins, fourth grade pranksters at Jerome Horwitz Elementary, get themselves in deep trouble when on the day of the big football game. They put pepper in the pom-poms of the cheerleaders, pour bubble bath into the marching band’s instruments, and fill the football with helium, so that it flies off into the blue at kick off, never to return. Worst of all, their nemesis Mr. Krupp, “the meanest, sourest old principal in the history of” the school has videotaped their pranks. Now they must do everything he tells them to do: behave in class, wash his car, paint his house, and clip his nails, and stop selling their homemade comic book about Captain Underpants, a superhero who fights the bad guys wearing only show more his cotton briefs and a cape, or face expulsion or something even worse. Krupp threatens to turn the videotape over to the football team. Then the football team will find out who replaced the supply of “Deep-Heating Muscle Rub Lotion with Mr. Prankster’s Extra-Scratchy Itching Cream!” George and Harold are forced to beg for mercy.

“No!” cried George. “You can’t do that. They’ll kill us!”

“Yeah,” begged Harold, “they’ll kill us every day for the rest of our lives!”

And so, for the next four to six weeks the two junior miscreants must endure involuntary servitude and bend to whims and dictates of their cruel principal, in addition to being on their best classroom behavior. Until…until the box containing their 3-D Hypno-Ring arrives in the mail. Then under their hypnotic suggestion and a snap of the fingers, Krupp turns into a life size version of their silly superhero Captain Underpants wearing only his tighty-whites and his office curtain as a cape. And adventure ensues including action enhanced by the cheesy animation of FLIP-O-RAMA! 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 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 show more 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

An intermediate chapter book, for those readers that are moving out of initial stages but aren't yet ready for the bigger chapter books. This series is a particularly silly and fun introduction to larger reading projects. It is about Harold and George, two mischievous and rebellious grade school boys who are good at heart but a terror in school. When their principal finally catches incriminating evidence on video to use against them, and blackmails them into good behavior, they buy a hypno-ring in desperation. Of course, the thing actually works! They hypnotize their principal to get back the evidence he is holding against them, and then, just because they can't resist, they have a little fun, making him act like a monkey, other show more animals, even their comic book superhero, Captain Underpants. Unfortunately, Principal Krupp launches himself out the window while he is still in his Captain Underpants persona, and the boys have to follow him to try and reverse the hypnosis. Crazy hijincks and saving the world ensue.

I like this series. I think that it's great to get kids interested in reading, and it's just plain fun, too. Harold and George pull off pranks that make me giggle, and which are never wicked in spirit or truly dangerous. As the story progresses, it is evident that they really are good kids - after all, they rush to save the principal that they don't even like and they fight bad guys who want to destroy the world. Principal Krupp is a worthy adversary, and his transformation into a bona fide superhero will delight readers, as he goes from cranky despot to benevolent underwear-wearing vigilante. The jokes are often potty jokes, as one can guess from the title, or immature, but they're perfect for kids. Pilkey does offer some more tongue-in-cheek humor, too, like the mother reading a National Enquirer type paper telling her son that what he has just seen (evil robots and Captain Underpants) could never happen in the real world. I also enjoy how the comic that George and Harold write comes to life in the inadvertent creation of their own superhero in the real world. It is a delightful series, great to draw reluctant readers with all its humor and fast-paced action, great to draw boy readers, and this is a good kick-off to the whole shebang. show less