George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series.
The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”).
There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment. Okorafor-Mbachu leans on exclamation points for emphasis and clichés for morality however, bursts of humor, exotic flora and fauna and the unusual combination of Nigerian-based culture with children’s fantasy make this worth the read. Completion of her quest requires learning to fly, a dada ability that she’s been slowly mastering. She walks over 300 miles into the lush, terrifying jungle bursting with fantastical plants and creatures. However, when Dari and Zahrah venture into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle and a poisonous snake bites Dari, only Zahrah has the courage to seek the antidote. Supportive parents and best friend Dari can’t assuage Zahrah’s pain at being taunted about it. But only Zahrah has plants growing in her hair they’ve been there since birth and show that she’s dada (magical). Thirteen-year-old Zahrah lives on a planet where all technology from lights to computer networks is comprised of live plants. A girl ventures into a forbidden jungle to save her friend in this botanically creative fantasy.
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