- Book Cover Image:
- Book Summary: George and Harold are two good friends with big imaginations and lots of energy. They create a comic-book hero, Captain Underpants, that helps them pull all kinds of shenanigans! Unfortunately, the principal of their school does not approve of their pranks so Captain Underpants comes to life to save the day!
- APA Reference of Book: Pilkey, D. (1997). The adventures of Captain Underpants. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.
- Impressions: The first thing that came to mind upon my initial reading of several titles in this series was the idea that this book could have been written by a 10 year-old boy. It was no surprise to me as I read about the author on his website that the idea for the series first came to him when he was in second grade. The popularity of this series clearly comes from the fact that the language used and the themes of the books are all completely relatable to its target audience. While critics have labeled the series as having crude language and promotion of disrespect to authority, reluctant readers are drawn to the series due to its comic book style of having short chapters and pages filled with more pictures than words. While this series does not contain the more common controversial issues of young adult literature, being well versed on the ALA’s statement on Intellectual Freedom will facilitate conversations with parents that may come up surrounding the circulation of this series. In addition, using the idea that positive learning can come from negative portrayals (Tunnel, Jacobs, Young, & Bryan, 2012, p.209), share with parents the scheduled lesson on character traits. Hopefully this will stop a complaint from turning into a challenge.
- Professional Review: Gr 2-4--Pilkey plays with words and pictures, providing great entertainment. The story is immediately engaging--two fourth-grade boys who write comic books and who love to pull pranks find themselves in big trouble. Mean Mr. Krupp, their principal, videotapes George and Harold setting up their stunts and threatens to expose them. The boys' luck changes when they send for a 3-D Hypno-Ring and hypnotize Krupp, turning him into Captain Underpants, their own superhero creation. Later, Pilkey includes several pages of flip-o-ramas that animate the action. The simple black-and-white illustrations on every page furnish comic-strip appeal. The cover features Captain Underpants, resplendent in white briefs, on top of a tall building. This book will fly off the shelves.
- Library Uses: Engage students in a discussion of the qualities that define a superhero. Partner students up and provide each pair with a dictionary and a thesaurus. Have them draft up a list of character traits they feel would be essential for a superhero to possess. Using their list, have them invent an original superhero, assigning specific character traits to their superhero. Create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the character traits of Captain Underpants to the superhero they created.
Tunnell, M.O., Jacobs, J.S., Young, T.A., & Bryan, G.W. (2012). Children's literature, briefly. Boston, MA: Pearson, Education, Inc.
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