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. The theme of missing girls from countries around the world-including Pakistan, France, Kenya, the U.S., and the Philippines-is important, although the identity of the perpetrator complicates matters.įans of the first volume will enjoy returning to Wakanda. The writing in this sequel is stronger than in the first installment, and this time around Shuri reads as less American. Dismissing K’Marah’s concerns, despite some nagging guilt, Shuri follows Wakanda’s noninterventionist approach and convinces herself that two young girls like themselves couldn’t possibly have an impact on a problem with a global scale-until K’Marah eventually pressures her into action. She resists acting when she first learns about worldwide disappearances of gifted young girls in STEM fields. She lies about K’Marah to protect herself, neglecting to show her friend much empathy when she notices K’Marah behaving strangely. Studious Shuri seems primarily focused on her academics. Third-person narration again alternates with Shuri’s first-person mission logs to chronicle the princess’s life. Princess Shuri of Wakanda is back in this sequel to Shuri (2020).Ī few months after Shuri and her best friend, K’Marah, saved Wakanda’s beloved heart-shaped herb, the confidence placed in Shuri by others (especially her mother, Queen Ramonda) doesn’t appear to have grown.

Shuri the vanished