Captain Underpants
Cover of the first Captain Underpants book
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| Author | Dav Pilkey |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Dav Pilkey |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| Publisher |
Blue Sky (US), Scholastic (US) |
| Published | 1997-2015 (spin-offs from 2002-present) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
Captain Underpants is a children's novel series by American author and illustrator Dav Pilkey. The series revolves around two fourth graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, living in Piqua, Ohio, and Captain Underpants, an aptly named superhero from one of the boys' homemade comic books, that accidentally becomes real when George and Harold hypnotize their ill-tempered principal, Mr. Krupp. Soon after, Mr. Krupp gains superpowers by drinking alien juices.
The series includes 12 books and 3 spin-offs, and won a Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Award on April 4, 2006. As of 2016, the series had been translated in over 20 languages, with more than 70 million books sold worldwide, of that, over 50 million in the United States.DreamWorks Animation acquired rights to the series to make an animated feature film adaptation, which is scheduled to be released on June 2, 2017.
After the main series concluded with the twelfth novel in 2015, an in-universe spiritual successor, Dog-Man, was released in the following year.
The main series of Captain Underpants novels has developed a pattern of alliteration from the fourth book on—with the exception of the third book, whose "annoyingly long" title becomes a running joke in future books.
Novels 6 - 12 in the main series form one unbroken story, in which the ending of each of such novel except the last is a cliffhanger, and the next novel in sequence immediately picks up where the last one left off.
The Captain Underpants books were reported by the American Library Association to be the most frequently challenged books in the year 2012.Dav Pilkey also mentioned this in his website. According to the American Library Association, Pilkey's Captain Underpants series was banned in some schools for insensitivity and being unsuited to age group, as well as encouraging children to disobey authority.
The American Library Association stated in a release by the National Coalition Against Censorship that "This year's #1 banned book, Captain Underpants... is the gift that keeps on giving. Why? Because these popular, silly books are read by parents, with their children, all over the country. The potty humor makes parents roll their eyes and kids giggle. The absurdity of banning books in order to attack perceived moral problems is exemplified by this year's winner."
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Wikipedia