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. He doesn’t shy from challenging his readers, offering them a coming-of-age story that concludes that sometimes good people must be sacrificed or wrong things must be done in order to win a larger battle.Ī rare insider’s glimpse into the Hitler Youth: animated, well-researched, and thought-provoking.

Through Michael’s narration and an accessible story and characters, Gratz sheds light on the connection between Fascism and bullying, the moral dilemmas of war, and the lesser-known, common use of children for serious tasks by the Nazi regime. When, as a junior Gestapo, he joins the group assigned to assassinate a Jewish physicist who is working on developing an American atom bomb, he becomes embroiled in a complex drama of espionage and betrayal. Michael’s photographic memory comes in handy for remembering enemy codes and formulas.

When a downed British pilot alerts him to the existence of Projekt 1065-an effort by Nazi Germany to build a faster warplane that works without propellers-Michael discovers that his classmate Fritz’s father is designing the plane, which gives him remarkable access to the blueprints. Just like his parents, 13-year-old Michael O’Shaunessey, from the politically neutral country of Ireland, becomes a spy in Nazi Germany. The son of the Irish ambassador to Germany poses as a member of the Hitler Youth in order to support the Allies during World War II.

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