Howsa Bout a Book Review? (or TWO???)

Last time my younger brother Tyler was here, he told me about two books he had that I had wanted to read. He told me he'd bring 'em over next time he was here.

Sure enough, he came home today, with the two new books. One was a big success with me, the other...

Let's begin shall we?

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LAST STRAW

By: Jeff Kinney

This is the third in a series of books, which itself was adapted from an online "webdiary". The first time I actually found out about it was when Tyler was on a website called "Funbrain Academy", and whenever he lost and got a GAME OVER on one of the games, it showed a link to the said webdiary.

Here are the first two books in the series:





They are a series of "novels in cartoons", the same subtitle I used for my "Secret Agent Stick" series (which the layout of was inspired by this series).

They all center around a self-centered nearly-high-schooler named Greg Heffley, whose mom gets him a diary to write in, which he calls a "journal", as "diary" sounds too girly.

He has his slightly overweight friend, Rowley, his slightly overbearing mom, his bullying older brother Rodrick, his slightly crazy dad, and so on...

We got the first two books from a school book fair, and we went to Ellysa's water polo game. Not being really interested in the game (no offense to anyone, and I got more interested later), I decided I'd read the first book in the series to pass the time...

Oh my goodness... I ended up laughing so hard that Cindy actually complained that I was being too loud. I even showed some of it to Dad and he loved it too.

I later read "Rodrick Rules", and while I wasn't as impressed with it at first, I just read it again recently and thought it was just as good as the first book.

THIS one, however, I wasn't really sure about. I thought Jeff Kinney may be running out of ideas (a problem exhibited by the author of the next book I'll be reviewing, and one I've encountered more than enough times). However, I began reading it in the car, and was already laughing out loud. In fact, I'd almost go as far to say that it's most likely the best in the series, and that's something for a threequel...

I'd recommend getting all three, especially if you have preteens.

Now, onto the next review...


CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE PREPOSTEROUS PLIGHT OF THE PURPLE POTTY PEOPLE

By: Dav Pilkey

The cover of the book would make you think this would be the most awesome of all books. Well, that's what I thought too, at first...

The very first "Captain Underpants" book came out in 1997, when I was 5. I got the book, maybe for my birthday or something, read it, and loved it. Then the sequel came out 2 years later ("...and the Attack of the Talking Toilets"), and I loved it even more.

Each book seemed to be better than the last, and they got more absurd, with often fourth-wall breaking, mildly crude humor, and other fun stuff.

The whole idea of the series is a little complicated, but I think I can paraphrase it well enough:

George Beard and Harold Hutchins are two fourth-graders who attend Jerome Horowitz Elementary in Piqua, Ohio. While these boys are very imaginative and like to write and draw comic books, especially about their best hero ever, Captain Underpants, the staff at the school discourages use of imagination and fun, and therefore, the two often get in a lot of trouble.

But worst of all is their principal, Mr. Krupp. Krupp is the meanest principal of all school principals, and after catching the boys pulling a series of pranks at a big football game, he enslaves them to do all his chores. To get out of it, the boys order a "3-D Hypno Ring" in the mail, and use it to eventually turn their principal into the hero of their own imaginations, only wearing a curtain from his office window and his undergarments (know who I'm talking about yet?). Unfortunately, he believes he really IS a hero, and goes out to fight crime. This actually leads to them saving the world from disaster, but in the end, they have to change their principal back to his mean, awful self.

But this change ain't permanent, because at the sound of fingers snapping, Krupp turns into the underwear hero once again, and the three continue to save the world from living toilets, zombie lunch nerds and aliens, and best of all: WEDGIE WOMAN!!!

I was satisfied with the first 7 books of the series, and the 7th had a cliffhanger that led straight into this one, so I wanted to read it really bad. Too bad it didn't live up to my expectations...

Okay, so a 16-and-a-half year old may most likely have outgrown this kind of thing already, but to prove the opposite, I had read the first 6 (7 was missing from the daycare bookshelf) over again, and still really enjoyed them a lot. So what happened here?

Well, maybe it's not me, but the series. The first couple books were surreal, but not TOO surreal. This 8th installment is just a little too bizarre for me, however. Or targeted more at the younger ones (which makes sense, I suppose, but why do that if some older ones were enjoying it too?). The story was also pretty anti-climatic, too, with moments that could've been epic just ending in a matter of moments.

WARNING: ANOTHER DETOUR...

As "Spongebob Squarepants" is on it's 7th season and 10th anniversary, it is now the most overrated show on Nickelodeon. I really liked the first three seasons for the most part, but then the show's creator left along with a number of the original writers, and so seasons 4 and onward have been very different, and, with a few exceptions, not in the good way...

One thing is whenever they come out with a half-hour (20 minutes w/o commercials) special, the whole world stops. Burger King creates an entire TOY LINE for this one episode (they've had a long history with Spongebob), and Nick advertises the living (not-so-good word) out of it.

The connection here? Well, the commercials make the episode seem like it'll be epic, while it's really not (after all, only 20 minutes). One special from season 4, called "Lost in Time", had a scene in the commercial of Spongebob and Patrick being in what looked like an awesome seahorse battle, and with them going on an EPIC quest to save the King's daughter as part of a prophecy.

When the special finally aired, it wasn't like what I expected. The seahorse battle only lasted a matter of 15 seconds (no kidding), and the scenes that should have been epic were totally lame and (*ding!*) anti-climatic.

END DETOUR

In a similar way, I read about how the two boys would be in an alternate universe where everything was backwards. It sounded really cool, but it wasn't used as much as it could've been. Then the boys' pet hamster ends up giant and heading towards the big city, and while it should've been a bit more epic, it lasted pretty short. This was a common trend with most of the "big battles", done in Flip-O-Rama (look that up online). Not to mention at the end, when their GRANDPARENTS end up fighting at the end, due to a comic book the two boys wrote earlier that they read (which happens to become reality, which happened in an earlier book), that's also anti-climatic and kinda dumb.

Overall, not the masterpiece I was expecting. Oh, and the 9th is coming pretty soon (I hope it's the last).

Anyway, that's the end for this rather lenghty post. Thanks for reading!

Mr. Brinkerhoff is off to bed (or is he?)