Pilkey, Dave. Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants. Illustrated by Dave Pilkey. Blue Sky, 2000. ISBN 0-439-04997-0. $16.95. 153 pp. B 2+ FI?? Reviewed by Gabi Kupitz Professor Poopypants hails from a country where silly last names are in vogue. Not so in the United States. Here, Professor Poopypants had hoped to show people his latest invention to end world hunger, but all attention is on his name, and he is not taken seriously at all. Without funds to return home and hoping to rebuild his reputation as a credible scientist, Professor Poopypants answers an ad for an elementary school science teacher. Of course, the elementary school children are as silly as the adults who laugh at the professor’s name. Enraged, the brilliant professor shrinks all the children and imposes silly names on them all. Two of the students, naughty George and Harold, enlist Captain Underpants’ help in their fight to return the school to normal. The fourth in the Captain Underpants series, Professor Poopypants, is not for the serious reader of literature. However, some adults and many children love the naughty boys, the pranks they play, and the words like “fart,” which they use. They also learn that one is accountable for one’s actions. Reluctant readers will enjoy the short chapters punctuated by the many illustrations, the summary chapter, the “Flip-o-rama” which animates select illustrations, and the name charts on pages 90-91 from which the reader can construct his or her own silly name. Lots of fun and perhaps a springboard to great literature.
