Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers

Super Diaper Baby 2: The Invasion of the Potty Snatchers
by George Beard and Harold Hutchins (really, it's by Dav Pilkey)
Tree House Comix (really, Blue Sky Press/Scholastic), 2011
review copy purchased for my classroom library and my own amusement

Last summer, I provided a public service announcement about THE ADVENTURES OF OOK AND GLUK.

This summer, I'm here to tell you (teachers, librarians, parents and grandparents) not to fear Super Diaper Baby 2. Yes, it is chock-full of potty humor, but it also comes with a pretty hysterical parody of HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. And the plot does turn on the water cycle. (Or maybe that should be -- is a twisted version of the water cycle...twisted, because it does have to do with pee after all...)

Yup. As low as low brow gets. But my 4th graders will love it.

The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen From the Future

The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung Fu Cavemen From the Future
The second graphic novel by George Beard and Harold Hutchins,
the creators of CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS (aka Dav Pilkey)
Scholastic (Blue Sky Press), 2010
Review copy purchased with my very own money.

I'm sorry to have to tell the Newbery Committee this, but I'm afraid that while this book will never even be considered for the Newbery Medal, it is likely to be the most popular book in my fourth grade classroom in the first weeks of school.

As a public service to all nervous teachers, parents, librarians and grandparents, I have read this book cover to cover and I pronounce it to be hysterically funny.  Laugh out loud funny. I also would like to assure the above audiences that I do not believe that the spelling mistakes that George and Harold make in their comics will in any way cause children's brains to rot and impair their ability to learn to spell correctly or write coherently. If the children who read this book don't know that there are misspelled words, they'll still be able to understand and enjoy the story. If the children who read this book DO know that there are misspelled words, well, hooray that they can recognize the misspellings. They'll still be able to understand and enjoy the story.

And while we're on the subject of spelling, phonics, and understanding a story, Pilkey totally rewards his readers for sounding out long (but not hard) words. One character is named Chief Goppernopper.  He is variously referred to as Chief Grasshopper, Gobstopper, and Gumwrapper (to name a few).  Pilkey goes off on extended riffs of rhyming with Gluk's name (rhymes with duck, stuck, truck...) and Ook's name (rhymes with duke, spook, kook...).

There are kid-level allusions to popular culture: the whole section where they learn Kung Fu in the future hearkens back to Karate Kid, and there are chapter title pages that are Star Wars and Jurassic Park take-offs.  There are puns, like on Flip-o-rama #8:  "Mechasaurus Wrecks!" (Tyrannosaurus Rex?) where the robot dinosaurs destroy a tower. There are, as in the Captain Underpants books, billboards that get their meaning changed, in this case when they are zapped by futuristic ray guns in a chase scene. For example, "I went to BOB'S POOLS to buy my pool! Now I dive in my pool, swim under the waves, and wear a BIG smile!!!" becomes "I went POO poo in my underwear".  Besides the potty humor, there is a decent amount of barf humor. Kid humor. Spot-on kid humor.

Find out more at Dav Pilkey's website, and at the Scholastic website. But most of all, don't be afraid of this book.