Mr Krupp Chapter Summaries
Why challenge a legend
Back in elementary school, reading wasn’t the thing to do or to be part of ‘the cool kids’, but there was sure one book everyone did read & enjoy. That one book or series is Captain Underpants. Now a days, my younger brother who is only 10, even read it. This book was and still is a big hit among student’s readers in elementary grades. This book is available in almost any library around town, except high schools or colleges, where students are expected to have higher reading preferences.
This series introduces two fourth grade students and best friends whose names are Harold & George. Together they write a comic book about a super hero named Captain Underpants. Cpt. U is based off of their mean principal, Mr. Krupp. One day, George & Harold find a 3-D ring that has the ability to hypnotize a person. So you can guess who they decided to hypnotize first already. They decide to play around with the ring to turn Mr. Krupp from a chicken to a monkey & finally decide to turn their comic book fantasy into a reality. By now it’s too late & the joke has gone too far, Mr. Krupp now believes he is now …show more content…
Captain Underpants & goes on with taking his clothes off except for his underwear & grabs a curtain as a cape. Thinking he is a super hero, he goes throughout town stopping bank robberies gets in trouble with the cops for intervening with criminal activity. Luckily, he is saved by George & Harold. Later on in the story, Cpt. Underpants is taken to Dr. Diaper, who is a diabolical evil genius. Dr. Diaper confuses Cpt. U.’s mind up & tries to convince him to help take over the world. It’s now up to Harold & George to get their principal back from Dr. Diaper & his minion army of robots. As any other story ends, the good guy always succeeds! After that incident, the boys decide its bet that they turn Mr. Krupp back to normal. Unfortunately, every time Mr. Krupp hears someone snap their fingers, he turns back into Captain Underpants. Sounds like an awesome book, don’t you think?
According to the American Library Association, for the 2nd year in a row (2012 & 2013), this book is number one in the list of top 10 most challenged books in the country by parents. The reason for this is that it contains offensive language & some violence. Some even say it is unsuitable for the age group its intended for. Parents complained to the Office of Intellectual Freedom about this.
Throughout the book, Mr.
Krupp is referred to as “that old guy” &”Mean old Mr. Krupp”. I do not find this offensive but rather common among young children anyways. Also, parents complained that the series contained partial nudity because Captain Underpants wears almost no clothes except for his signature underwear. If you were to count him showing off his chest as nudity, then that may be different. But if that is the case, then people at the beach would be restricted to wearing a shirt to the beach. Violence throughout the book involves the 2 protagonists fighting against evil robots & beating them with wooden planks, but other than that, nothing else. In the book, Mr. Krupp blackmails the 2 students into behaving well at school & doing chores for him in return of a tape where they were caught pranking the football team. This is considered
bullying.
LA Times reports Dav Pilkey saying “A series with no sex, no nudity, no drugs, no profanity and no more violence than a Superman cartoon has caused such an uproar” (LATimes.com, Parents hate 'Captain Underpants, ' 2013 's most-challenged book series). I believe this is true as well because the only thing done wrong with the script of the book is that captain underpants should’ve had a different outfit. Maybe with more clothes on for younger readers.
I interviewed my cousin Eric & friend Lucero on their thoughts & opinions on Captain Underpants being a challenged book. Both read the book in 4th grade but can still remember it well. Eric says “I just don’t understand why they want to ban it, man. If the children enjoy it, why try to take it away. I mean don’t they want us to read more! Some parents need to loosen up a bit”. Lucero stated that this is one of her favorite books since elementary & probably the most interesting. She also says “Why do people want to take away our books to learn & entertain ourselves from”. I for one, completely agree with both of their opinions that this book should remain open to the public to read. There are books worse than this out there. For this age group, they find tossing underwear & fake poop funny, as well as a guy running around in underwear. I would let my children read the series, if I had kids.
In a book review from Huffingtonpost.com, the critique says “my son, whom I’m reading this book too, laughs because the image of a giant hairy toilet bowl on a murder spree is funny. I cringe and wonder how quickly I can make the book disappear”. She believes that Dav Pilkey uses some offensive language but of course is goes along with the vocabulary of children around the age of 7. In this review, the writer critiques a lot the Cpt. Underpants series as saying “they who believe that women can be bossed around. It 's they who believe that women should be bossed around. It 's they who believe that woman are only good for cleaning and ironing. It 's they who believe that pretty women are docile and dumb and that ugly women are mean and aggressive, already monsters in spirit, and if not in fact.” She believes the book is being sexually bias against woman & what they are capable of.
In another book review from Publisher Weekly, the critique reports “disrespect like the sight of a man wearing whitie-tighties. However, most superheroes look like they 're flying around in their underwear....Well, this guy actually is flying around in his underwear”. By saying this, he was trying to communicate to parents that superheroes like Superman & Batman fly around the city with underwear, why can’t Cpt. Underpants do the same. This review was actually defending the fact that Cpt. Underpants should not be on the ‘Most challenged book list’ & saying that it has as much humor, action, & battles as any other superhero series would.
Works Cited
Business Insider, “Why Cpt. Underpants is the most banned book in America”,(2014) NP
Jennifer G, Introverted Reader, “Banned book: Adventures of Captain Underpants” (2014)
LA Times, “Parents hate 'Captain Underpants, ' 2013 's most-challenged book series”, Jacket Copy (2013)
Mother Daughter Book Reviews “Book Review: The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey”, (2013)
Slate, “Why Parents (and Teachers) Should Embrace Captain Underpants”, Slate group & Graham Holdings Company, 2014
Back in elementary school, reading wasn’t the thing to do or to be part of ‘the cool kids’, but there was sure one book everyone did read & enjoy. That one book or series is Captain Underpants. Now a days, my younger brother who is only 10, even read it. This book was and still is a big hit among student’s readers in elementary grades. This book is available in almost any library around town, except high schools or colleges, where students are expected to have higher reading preferences.
This series introduces two fourth grade students and best friends whose names are Harold & George. Together they write a comic book about a super hero named Captain Underpants. Cpt. U is based off of their mean principal, Mr. Krupp. One day, George & Harold find a 3-D ring that has the ability to hypnotize a person. So you can guess who they decided to hypnotize first already. They decide to play around with the ring to turn Mr. Krupp from a chicken to a monkey & finally decide to turn their comic book fantasy into a reality. By now it’s too late & the joke has gone too far, Mr. Krupp now believes he is now …show more content…
Captain Underpants & goes on with taking his clothes off except for his underwear & grabs a curtain as a cape. Thinking he is a super hero, he goes throughout town stopping bank robberies gets in trouble with the cops for intervening with criminal activity. Luckily, he is saved by George & Harold. Later on in the story, Cpt. Underpants is taken to Dr. Diaper, who is a diabolical evil genius. Dr. Diaper confuses Cpt. U.’s mind up & tries to convince him to help take over the world. It’s now up to Harold & George to get their principal back from Dr. Diaper & his minion army of robots. As any other story ends, the good guy always succeeds! After that incident, the boys decide its bet that they turn Mr. Krupp back to normal. Unfortunately, every time Mr. Krupp hears someone snap their fingers, he turns back into Captain Underpants. Sounds like an awesome book, don’t you think?
According to the American Library Association, for the 2nd year in a row (2012 & 2013), this book is number one in the list of top 10 most challenged books in the country by parents. The reason for this is that it contains offensive language & some violence. Some even say it is unsuitable for the age group its intended for. Parents complained to the Office of Intellectual Freedom about this.
Throughout the book, Mr.
Krupp is referred to as “that old guy” &”Mean old Mr. Krupp”. I do not find this offensive but rather common among young children anyways. Also, parents complained that the series contained partial nudity because Captain Underpants wears almost no clothes except for his signature underwear. If you were to count him showing off his chest as nudity, then that may be different. But if that is the case, then people at the beach would be restricted to wearing a shirt to the beach. Violence throughout the book involves the 2 protagonists fighting against evil robots & beating them with wooden planks, but other than that, nothing else. In the book, Mr. Krupp blackmails the 2 students into behaving well at school & doing chores for him in return of a tape where they were caught pranking the football team. This is considered
bullying.
LA Times reports Dav Pilkey saying “A series with no sex, no nudity, no drugs, no profanity and no more violence than a Superman cartoon has caused such an uproar” (LATimes.com, Parents hate 'Captain Underpants, ' 2013 's most-challenged book series). I believe this is true as well because the only thing done wrong with the script of the book is that captain underpants should’ve had a different outfit. Maybe with more clothes on for younger readers.
I interviewed my cousin Eric & friend Lucero on their thoughts & opinions on Captain Underpants being a challenged book. Both read the book in 4th grade but can still remember it well. Eric says “I just don’t understand why they want to ban it, man. If the children enjoy it, why try to take it away. I mean don’t they want us to read more! Some parents need to loosen up a bit”. Lucero stated that this is one of her favorite books since elementary & probably the most interesting. She also says “Why do people want to take away our books to learn & entertain ourselves from”. I for one, completely agree with both of their opinions that this book should remain open to the public to read. There are books worse than this out there. For this age group, they find tossing underwear & fake poop funny, as well as a guy running around in underwear. I would let my children read the series, if I had kids.
In a book review from Huffingtonpost.com, the critique says “my son, whom I’m reading this book too, laughs because the image of a giant hairy toilet bowl on a murder spree is funny. I cringe and wonder how quickly I can make the book disappear”. She believes that Dav Pilkey uses some offensive language but of course is goes along with the vocabulary of children around the age of 7. In this review, the writer critiques a lot the Cpt. Underpants series as saying “they who believe that women can be bossed around. It 's they who believe that women should be bossed around. It 's they who believe that woman are only good for cleaning and ironing. It 's they who believe that pretty women are docile and dumb and that ugly women are mean and aggressive, already monsters in spirit, and if not in fact.” She believes the book is being sexually bias against woman & what they are capable of.
In another book review from Publisher Weekly, the critique reports “disrespect like the sight of a man wearing whitie-tighties. However, most superheroes look like they 're flying around in their underwear....Well, this guy actually is flying around in his underwear”. By saying this, he was trying to communicate to parents that superheroes like Superman & Batman fly around the city with underwear, why can’t Cpt. Underpants do the same. This review was actually defending the fact that Cpt. Underpants should not be on the ‘Most challenged book list’ & saying that it has as much humor, action, & battles as any other superhero series would.
Works Cited
Business Insider, “Why Cpt. Underpants is the most banned book in America”,(2014) NP
Jennifer G, Introverted Reader, “Banned book: Adventures of Captain Underpants” (2014)
LA Times, “Parents hate 'Captain Underpants, ' 2013 's most-challenged book series”, Jacket Copy (2013)
Mother Daughter Book Reviews “Book Review: The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey”, (2013)
Slate, “Why Parents (and Teachers) Should Embrace Captain Underpants”, Slate group & Graham Holdings Company, 2014