The series' twelfth entry finds pals George and Harold d their duplicates, Yesterday George and Yesterday Harold ppily taking turns attending school and playing hooky. All's well until gym teacher Mr. Meaner ingests some Zygo-Gogozizzle 24, turns into a superintelligent supervillain, and builds a machine to transform students, including Yesterday George and Yesterday Harold, into model, rule-following children. To stop Mr. Meaner's dastardly plan for global domination, George and Harold must time travel to enlist help from their future, grown-up selves as well as from Captain Underpants (whose own powers may have been compromised) and the Hamsterdactyls. Featuring characteristically wacky and over-the-top escapades, puns, potty humor, snarky-narrator commentary (including a jab at critics of the series' language, vowing to please "Grumpy Old People" e GOP including "topics of interest especially for them. . . . Bob Evans Restaurants, hard candies, FOX News, and gentle-yet-effective laxatives"), abundant cartoon depictions and comics, Flip-O-Ramas, and previous title references, this will prove popular with series fans.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The insane popularity of Pilkey's Captain Underpants series hasn't ebbed with time. A new title will send droves of kids to the shelves, so stock up!

Gr 2-4 George and Harold, and their doubles, Yesterday George and Yesterday Harold, have a good thing going. Two of them go to school while the other two hide in the tree house and play video games all daythen they switch. But when their malicious gym teacher, Mr. Meaner, creates a method of mind control that turns their fellow students into attentive, obedient, perfect children, the future of all humanity is in the boys' hands. The catastrophe is resolved when the boys travel into the future and seek the help of their adult selves. This latest installment features several "flip-o-rama" pages that allow readers to flip quickly back and forth to create an animated effect. Like the other books in this series, the title is a combination of comic book sequences, deeply silly plotlines, and prank-filled humor. The text continues to make fun of teachers, parents, and the elderly. VERDICT When Captain Underpants first arrived on shelves in 1997, there were few books like it. Now, with fun and funny chapter books series like Megan McDonald's "Stink" (Candlewick), Dan Greenburg's "The Zack Files" (Grosset &; Dunlap), and the comic-style adventures of "Geronimo Stilton" (Scholastic), the potty-mouthed caped crusader has competition. Die-hard fans, however, will likely be excited to see this 12th installment. Paula Huddy, The Blake School-Highcroft Campus, Wayzata, MN