Supa Dupa Dog! Dog Man by Dav Pilkey

All the drama had come to an end.

George and Harold searched their tree house for clues... but soon got distracted.

"It's a box full of old Dog Man comics we made when we were kids," said George.

"Hey, I forgot all about these!" said Harold.

They read for hours. "I crack me up," said Harold.

"Look how you used to draw!" said George.

"Old school!" said Harold. "And look how bad you used to SPELL!"

"Let's make a new comic book," said George.

Yep! The comic hero hiatus is over, kiddos! Dav Pilkey is back. George and Harold are, oh, so, mature fourth graders, and vowing to outdo their primary-grade best sellers, they have a brand-new comic supa hero, Dog Man, with supa dupa better spelling, even.

DOG Man was reborn anew-ish! A Hero is unleashed!

The product of a head transplant from Greg the Police Dog (who was smarter) to Officer Knight's body, Pilkey's new hero sets out to avenge the cruel cause of their emergency amalgamation against Petey, the mad cat scientist and supa scofflaw.

Petey is not happy with his new trans-species nemesis.

"RATS!! I unwittingly created the greatest cop of EVER!!!!!!"

It's back to the lab for Petey, who creates a monster, a giant version of the thing all dogs fear most--a self-powered robo Vacuum Cleaner!

"Let's get ready to Roomba!" chortles Petey.

Dog Man triumphs over Vac Man, and Petey is imprisoned. But not to be foiled, master villain Petey mail-orders a can of Invisible Spray and escapes unseen and unsee-able. Invisible, Petey is free to carry out his detestable anti-canine crime wave at will.

But detective Dog Man has his secret sleuthing equipment already on board--his supa sniffer nose. If Petey can't be seen, he can be scented, and Petey's days on the lam are numbered when a supa police dog-man hybrid is hot on the trail, in Dav Pilkey's newest best seller, Dog Man: From the creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 1) (Scholastic Press, 2016). Packed with supa silly stories, some petty potty humor, and all the chuckles that provided by The Adventures of Captain Underpants, former fans and new readers, reluctant or otherwise, will welcome this new series of lighthearted graphic novels.

All dressed up with  George's new and improved spelling, full color panels, the ever-popular flip pages, and a poster, plus all the usual suspects from George and Harold's zany world, this one has the humor for which Pilkey, also the author of a plenty of hilarious picture books such as Dog Breath, Kat Kong, and The Hallo-wiener, is famous. A rapid release is also planned for the second book, Dog Man Unleashed (Dog Man 2): From the creator of Captain Underpants in December. Readers and reviewers alike acclaim this one: as Booklist says with a starred review, " "Pilkey... has again fired an arrow of joy straight at the fevered childhood psyche of millions of readers. An utter, unfettered delight."

True Tales of Two Pals: Big Dog and Little Dog: Tales of Adventure by Dav Pilkey

On their adventure walk Big Dog and Little Dog see something a little strange.

Big Dog thinks it is a kitty.

Ssssss. But it does not smell like a kitty.

Big Dog and Little Dog like adventures. But they absolutely do not like smelling like that kitty smells.

Bad.

Some adventures make for bad smells.

But there's always another day for Big Dog and Little Dog, who know how to make the best of each day--and night.

One night Big Dog and Little Dog go happily to their own beds, one big and one little. But then they both get lonely. Does Little Dog move to Big Dog's big bed? No. They both sleep on Little Dog's little bed. It's little, but it's not lonely.

Big Dog and little Dog like to make the most of fun on days with muddy puddles... and then they shake and shake and share the fun and mud with their owner! And one day they have to play inside. There are no smelly kitties and no muddy puddles, so they play with the sofa. They play tug of war with the cushions. But what is this white stuff coming out of the cushions? This adventure has not gone well.

Sorry.

In the five funny doggy tales in Dav Pilkey's Big Dog and Little Dog Tales of Adventure (Green Light Readers Level 1) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), there are two dog buddies who share their good and bad days in this easy reader for emerging readers. Author Pilkey's black-outlined colorful characters keep the stories fun, and Pilkey also adds some games and puzzles about each story to reinforce the vocabulary and pages that practice the sequencing skills presented in each Level 1 story. Dick and Jane never had so much fun as Big Dog and Little Dog do!

Pilkey is of course the much celebrated author of doggone good giggle-bait classics such as Dogzilla, Kat Kong, The Hallo-Wiener and the best-selling Captain Underpants: 10 Book Set and its many sequels and spinoffs. Dav Pilkey even claims his own authorial cred, earning an actual Caldecott Honor medal for his book The Paperboy.

Before the Big Bang? Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers by Dav Pilkey

WITH ALL OF THAT MISDIRECTION OUT THERE, LIFE CAN GET A LITTLE CONFUSING. BUT DON'T WORRY, THIS EPIC NOVEL CONTAINS NO MISDIRECTION WHATSOEVER. THIS LEGENDARY TOME WILL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING, FROM OUR RECENT NARRATIVE COMPLEXITIES TO THE VAST MYSTERIES OF OUR UNIVERSE. BY THE TIME YOU GET TO PAGE 210, YOU'LL KNOW IT ALL. YOU'LL BE SMARTER THAN THE MOST BRILLIANT SCIENTIST WHO EVER WALKED THE EARTH

Killer LAFFS, manic MAYHEM, disgusting DRAMA, and funny PHYSICS, some FLIP-O-RAMA sections, and even an explanation (sort of) of the Big Bang Theory (the scientific theory, not the sitcom)--all are to be found when those crazy cartoonists of Jerome Horowitz Elementary School, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, try to sort out all the problems left over from their banishment to their own Land Before Time in Book 9 of this comic classic series.

In Dav Pilkey's latest best-selling Book Ten sequel, Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers (Scholastic, 2013)  we find our resourceful boys deprived of their creation, super-hero (nee school principal Krupp) Captain Underpants, because the nefarious villain Timmy Tinklepants (a.k.a. Professor Poopypants)) has used his version of the Way-Back Machine, the Purple Potty, to send the boys back to the primordial swamps 65 million years ago before Principal Krupp was born and way before the boys could turn him into comic co-conspirator, Captain Underpants.

But George and Harold are resourceful superhero creators. Looking for allies, the boys round up the puny population of cavemen back then to help them fight Timmy. But the cavemen seem to communicate only in grunts, requiring the lads to invent cave paintings and thereby cartooning to show the natives why Timmy Tinklepants is a bad guy. The plan works, the cavemen join the coalition, but they reckon without Timmy's other secret weapon, the Freezy Beam 4000, which freezes the world and kicks off the Ice Age. George and Harold manage to subvert Timmy's evil machine long enough to send themselves back to the future--but this time just a LIT-tle too far, thirty years too far, where they encounter their own worst nightmare.

A RUSTY GREEN 2034 HONDA CIVIC PULLED INTO THE SCHOOL PARKING LOT. IT WAS MR.KRUPP--ONLY THIS WAS A THIRTY-YEAR-OLDER VERSION OF MR. KRUPP.

MR. KRUPP MARCHED TOWARD THE PLAYGROUND TOWARD TWO OBNOXIOUS SCREAMING TEACHERS... AND SCREAMED FOUR WORDS THAT SENT SHIVERS DOWN GEORGE AND HAROLD'S SPINES.

"MR. BEARD! MR. HUTCHINS! GET THOSE KIDS INSIDE RIGHT NOW!"

THE TWO OBNOXIOUS, SCREAMING TEACHERS TURNED AROUND.

IT WAS THEM.

IT WAS THE FUTURE VERSIONS OF THEMSELVES. GEORGE AND HAROLD HAD EVOLVED INTO THE TERRIFYING, BORING, AND VENGEFUL TEACHERS THEY WERE USED TO.

Anything would be better than living out their future lives as mean and grumpy elementary teachers! George and Harold rack their brains to get themselves out of this one, in Pilkey's chortle-chasing Book 10, Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers, even taking on multiple iterations of Timmy Tinklepants in their search for a reset button and risking a return to the Big Bang, a.k.a. the Big KaBoosh, to escape this version of their future. Super silly spoofery abounds, as always, in the hands of author-illustrator Dav Pilkey, who seems to have no problem thinking outside the box. Creator of such mega-gigglers as The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen From the Future (Captain Underpants) (see my review here), Dog Breath, Kat Kong, Dogzilla,  The Dumb Bunnies, and the holiday classic, The Hallo-wiener, Pilkey's work is pitch-perfect parody for the elementary grades. Kirkus Reviews takes it all in in professional stride, adding "The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy. Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride"

May the Farce Be With You: The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung Fu Cavemen from the Future by Dav. Pilkey

OOK AND GLUK LIVED WAY BACK I THE YEAR 5000,001 B.C. IN A VILLEGE CALLED CAVELAND, OHIO. OOK AND GLUK WERE BEST FRIENDS. THEY HAD BEEN HAVING AWESOME ADVENTURES TOGETHER EVEN SINCE THEY WERE CAVE BABIES.

ONE TIME WHEN THEY WERE 9, THEY ALMOST GOT ATE UP BY MOG-MOG, THE FEARSEST DINOSAUR IN CAVELAND.

AND ONCE THEY EVEN TRAVELED TO THE FUTURE, LEARNED KUNG-FU, AND SAVED THERE WHOLE VILLEGE FROM EVIL ROBOTS AND TIME-TRAVELING WEIRDOS.

BUT BEFORE WE CAN TELL YOU THAT STORY WE HAVE TO TELL YOU ... THIS STORY...

That master of preteen parody, Dav Pilkey, is back with a new laugh-out-loud tale, purportedly concocted by the bards of Jerome Horowitz Elementary School, those fourth-grade graphic novelists George Beard and Harold Hutchins, alleged creators of the runaway best-selling The Adventures of Captain Underpants series. Using the comic page frames and invented spelling which Pilkey developed to a high art, his latest story indeed has an epic sweep as it deftly spoofs the venerable science fiction time travel tale. It all begins with a prehistorical nemesis Big Cheif [sic] Goppernopper and his henchmen and his vendetta against our heroes, who have graffitied his beloved throne....

GOPPERNOPPER: "Gards! "

GARDS: "Here we are, Cheif Grasshopper! "

GOPPERNOPPER: "My names not Grasshopper, its Goppernopper!!! Jeez, How many times me got to tell you?"

GARDS: "We sorry, Chief Gobstopper! "

GOPPERNOPPER: "While you dummies were goofing off, my throne was defiled (pointing to graffiti 'Ook was here. Gluk too') "

GARDS: "Yeah, and sombody wrote on your chair, too. "

GOPPERNOPPER: "Me going to teach Ook and Glook a lesson once and for all! "

GARD 1: "Him's name not Glook, it 'Gluk.'"

GARD 2: "It rime with 'duck.'"

GOPPERNOPPER: "Me no care what hims name rime with! Lets just go arest them!"

(So off they went.)

Gard 1: "It also ryme with 'stuck'."

Gard 2: "And 'truck.'"

Goppernopper's search for the young vandals leads him to discover his modern alter ego and dastardly descendant Boss Goppernopper, from the year 2222, who, having invented the time-travel portal, is mining the past cave world for its natural resources and making a killing selling lumber, minerals, and pristine prehistoric water in the ecologically devastated future. Chief Goppernopper likes his great, great, etc. grandson's style and helps him recruit the Cavelanders as slave laborers. All this is too much for Ook and Gluk, who choose to go forward in time and stop this travesty. On the way they learn Kung-Fu wisdom from Master Wong: "He who conquers his own mind is the greatest warrior."

And it's no surprise that Ook and Gluk, with the help of their pet dino, Lily, who barfs at the most opportune times, elude the elder and younger Goppernoppers' evil intentions and, using the wisdom of Wong, even trick their wicked overloads into a fight in which the younger Goppernopper zaps his ancestor, which, in the best time-travel tradition, ensures his own non-existence in the present and expunges his despoiling of prehistory as well. Ook and Gluk return to the now restored prehistoric Eden of Caveland, Ohio, and all's well that ends well.

It's all glorious silliness, of course, but also dang clever spoofery and artwork, done up in Pilkey's best genre-bending style and bound to keep the middle elementary crowd in stitches throughout what looks to be an extended series. Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Ook and Gluk, Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future (Blue Sky/Scholastic, 2010) should, like it predecessor, banish the reluctant reader to an almost extinct species for as long as copies of this giggle fest are to be had anywhere in the world!

A Bad Day! Dragon Gets By by Dav Pilkey

ONE WARM SUNNY DAY DRAGON WOKE UP VERY GROGGY.

HE DID EVERYTHING WRONG.

FIRST, HE READ HIS EGG AND FRIED THE MORNING NEWSPAPER. HE BUTTERED HIS TEA AND SIPPED A CUP OF TOAST.

Dragon opened the closet door instead of the front door and decided it wasn't morning yet. So he went back to bed.

But when he wakes again, he decides to get up and start his chores. The floor looks dirty, but after sweeping for hours, it only seems worse. When MailMouse rings the doorbell, she points out that Dragon's house has a dirt floor, so of course, it's "dirty." So Dragon shovels the loose dirt outside. Soon he has a huge pile of dirt in the yard.

"WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THIS DIRT?" DRAGON ASKS.

Dragon decides there's nothing to do with dirt but bury it. He digs a large hole and shovels the dirt from his floor into it. At last that's done. But then he turns around and sees a big pile of dirt.

"WHERE DID ALL THIS COME FROM?" DRAGON ASKS.

By now, Dragon is famished. But his cupboard is bare, so he drives up the big hill to the grocery store. Dragon is a wise shopper.

HE ONLY BOUGHT FOOD FROM THE FIVE BASIC FOOD GROUPS.

Dragon loads his cart with cheese crunchies from the dairy group, catsup from the veggie group, doughnuts from the grains group, and pork rinds from the meat group. And from the chocolate group he picks out fudge popsicles. Barely balancing all his food groups, Dragon staggers with his bags to the car. But it seems that when all the groceries are loaded, there's no room left for him in the car. What to do? The only choice is to eat all the food first.

It's one of those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days, in Dav Pilkey's Dragon Gets By: An Acorn Book (Dragon 3) (Scholastic Books, 2020), a delightfully silly noodle tale in which Dragon ends the day watering his bed and sleeping in the flower bed. Tomorrow can only be better!

Kids love author-illustrator Dav Pilkey's flair for the absurd in this beginning reader series that will be irresistible giggle bait for preschool and primary kids who love their books on the silly side. Pilkey, winner of a Caldecott Honor Medal for his novel, The Paperboy is also the creator of his comic graphic novels, Dog Man: The Epic Collection: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 1-3 Boxed Set), his best-selling series, Captain Underpants: 10 Book Set, and his classic pictures books such as The Dumb Bunnies, Dogzilla, Kat Kong, and The Hallo-Wiener., guaranteed to draw gales of giggles and make the day for young readers.

Two Turkeys at the Table: A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting and 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey

As Mrs. Moose decorates her Thanksgiving table with a fold-out crepe paper turkey, she confides to her genial husband that she's always wanted a real turkey for Thanksgiving. In his most earnest "yes, dear" manner, Mr. Moose sets out, guest list in hand, on a quest to satisfy his spouse's heart's desire.

Mr. Moose invites the neighbors to dinner--Porcupine, Rabbit, and the always ravenous Goat--as he plods through the frost-nipped landscape, and they join him in scouting out a turkey. At last they find one trying to hide behind warning signs ("No Turkey Here") in the tall grass by the river. Understandably unwilling to provide the provender for their Thanksgiving feast, Turkey resists arrest, but Mr. Moose propels the reluctant turkey homeward, where Mrs. Moose is most appreciative when she sees the appealing plumpness of his pick.

Of course, when the table is set with delicious vegetarian treats for the Mooses and their guests, Mr. Moose pushes Turkey into the guest of honor's seat, and Mrs. Moose solicitously murmurs that she hope he will find something to his taste at her table. Turkey, who has been sweating bullets over his fate, replies with great relief that he had feared the diners would only be concerned about HOW he would taste! All's well that ends well, and Mrs. Moose has her turkey for Thanksgiving at last.

Eve Bunting's take on this old story line flows effortlessly with gentle humor, and Diane deGroat's watercolors perfectly capture the pleasantly frigid autumn landscape and the cozy folkloric cottage interiors as her characters prepare to chow down on their harvest feast together.

For a wackier take on this plot line, humorist author and illustrator Dav Pilkey has a holiday offering which has real kid appeal. 'Twas the Night before Thanksgiving parodies the Clement Clark Moore classic with plenty of pizzaz. If the rhymes are a bit off and the scansion is less than Shakespearean, the vervey verse only adds to the hilarity.

A group of eight kids set forth in a stubby yellow school bus for a pre-Thanksgiving field trip to--you guessed it--Mack Nuggett's Turkey Farm, where they are introduced to the seemingly jovial farmer:

He was dressed all in denim
From his head to his toe,
With a pinch of polyester
And a touch of velcro.

The kids are then introduced to the turkeys,

Ollie, Stanley, Larry, Moe,
Wally, Beaver, and Groucho.

who gleefully join the kids in frolicking through a tour of the farm. But when the kids spot an anxiety-provoking axe gleaming at-the-ready nearby, they suddenly make the fatal connection between turkeys, axes, and Thanksgiving dinners and see that it's time to mount a turkey takeover. Suddenly the kids look a bit plumper, with turkey feet and feathers barely visible under their sweaters as they re-board the bus for the trip home.

When their families sit down for their holiday feast, the emancipated turkeys are at the table, not on it, as all "feast on veggies, with jelly and toast."

Pilkey packs in plenty of verbal and visual gags, such as his goofy illustration spoofing "American Gothic" and the pun on kids' favorite fast food in the farmer's name, which give older kids and grownups some bonus chuckles while the tale bounces along to its kindhearted conclusion. As he did in The Hallow-Wiener and in his holiday book for all seasons, The Dumb Bunnies' Easter, Pilkey's cheery slapstick style lightens up the holiday fun with plenty of laughs for all.

THE BARK KNIGHT RISES! Dog Man and the Cat Kid by Dav Piikey

George:"What up, Poochies? We're George and Harold."

Harold: "Me, too! As you may remember, we're in 5th Grade now."

George: "That means we're totally mature. Anyhoo, our new teacher has been making us read all of these old-timey books lately. So anyway, East of Eden is actually a pretty cool book about good and evil and stuff."

Harold: "It totally inspired us! So now we started making a brand-new Dog Man graphic novel!

It's a tale of good... ... a tale of evil... and STUFF!"

Yes, dear readers, Dog Man (that modern medical transplant miracle--a canine police dog's head on a sturdy human cop's body) is back again. It seems that Petey (The World's Evilest Cat) is back, bent on revenge against his arch enemy, Dog Man. In the last installment of their story, Petey attempted to clone himself, the better to defeat Dog Man, but to his dismay, his clone comes out of the box as Petey, an itty bitty kitty, too sweet for maleficent mischief, who is adopted from the Free Kitty box by the unknowing Dog Man.

But Pete the Evilest Cat has plans to pervert his clone by way of the worst sort of cat chicanery. Disguised as the Mary Poppins-ish Kitty Sitter, Pete tries to flip poor Petey into an instrument of evil, but it's a hard sell--until Pete discovers that kittens are suckers for ice cream cones--and pretend-play as supervillains.

Pete the Evilest Etc.: "Finally I get to dump this old lady disguise and dress like my true self... A filthy...rotten... deplorable... despicable... loathsome... IGNOMINIOUS... SUPERVILLAIN!

And now it's your turn! We start with a mask... add a cape... and finish with retractable steel claws....

Dude! We are TOTALLY rockin' these bad guys costumes!"

Petey the Kitty: "This is just for PRETEND, right?"

Pete the Evilest: "Sure kid! It's ALL just for make-believe!"

Can Pete the Evilest Cat corrupt Petey the Kitty's innocence in a nefarious plot to sink the hortatory movie of Dog Man's crime-fighting career being filmed at Gassy Behemoth Studios? Or will Petey's basic goodness and a bunch of Dav Pilkey-esque gizmos overcome evil once more? Will Pete find himself foiled yet again? It's all there in the already best-selling sequel, Dog Man and Cat Kid: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 4) (Graphix/Scholastic Press, 2018). Filled with Pilkey's usual story-telling devices, hilarious sight-gags, fun flip pages, kooky characters, a cameo, er, ending from Captain Underpants, and a bunch of sly John Steinbeck take-offs that adults will appreciate, this one is yet another example of that certain brand of frenetic silliness unique to Pilkey's trademark type of graphic comic novel.  Pilkey is surely the genius of his particular and peculiar genre.

Other books in this series are Dog Man: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 1), Dog Man Unleashed: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 2), and Dog Man: A Tale Of Two Kitties (Dog Man 3) (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition), and the forthcoming Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 5).

Watch the terrific and appropriately clamorous book trailer here!

Dog Man in the Slammer! Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild by Dav Pilkey

"Wazzup, Rovers? It's your old pals, George and Harold. We're fifth graders now, so we're totally mature."

"And deep." said Harold.

Said George, "As a very wise man once said, ... "Enlightenment is not merely volition... but duty!"

"Snork!" snorted Harold.

"What?" asked George.

"You said 'Butt doodie,'" snickers Harold.

The very mature and deep co-authors have been delving deeply into classic American literature--The Call of the Wild-- and have written a new adventure tale of their super hero and dog + man hybrid Dog Man in what they modestly call "another Epic of Ginormous Ginormity!!!" That miracle of modern medicine, the caped crusader Dog Man (head of canine, body of policeman), along with his cute kitty sidekick Little Petey and cyborgian robot 80-HD are off in another adventure to foil master criminal (and Little Petey's Dada) Petey, currently residing in the Cat Jail (not to be confused with the Dog Jail) a penal institution not of his choosing.

Despite the pleas and riddles of Little Petey to reform big Petey, he escapes with all twenty complementary tickets to the premier of the new DOG MAN MOVIE. But Little Petey's pleas prevail and big Petey at last steers his latest diabolical creation--a giant robotic bee--in the denouement chapter, THE GREAT CAT'S BEE, in which Dog Man defeats the Great Claymation monster, saves the world and all that, and... well, you get the idea.

It's Book 6 of that master of silly lit, Dav Pilkey's Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 6) (Scholastic, 2018), published on Christmas Eve and already topping the best-seller list in another graphic comic novel in the Captain Underpants series. With dada-esque absurdity, flip-page animation, insightful chapter headings like "Even More Stuff Happens," and an appendix of Pilkeyan drawing lessons, the latest Dog Man saga has won starred reviews and lots of sales for his many middle reader fans.

For more unmuzzled goofiness, other punny titles in this series include Dog Man, Dog Man Unleashed: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 2), Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 3), Dog Man and Cat Kid: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 4), and Dog Man: Lord of the Fleas: From the Creator of Captain Underpants (Dog Man 5).