User:HoltMatheis/Captain Underpants

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Captain Underpants is an illustrated 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, who accidentally becomes real when George and Harold hypnotize their cruel, bossy, and ill-tempered principal, Mr. Krupp. From the third book onwards, Mr. Krupp also possesses superhuman strength, durability and flight as a result of drinking alien "Extra-Strength Super Power Juice". As of 2022, the series includes 13 books, two activity books, 15 spin-offs, and it won a Kids' Choice Award on April 4, 2006. As of 2014, the series has been translated into more than 20 languages, with more than 80 million books sold worldwide, including over 50 million in the United States. DreamWorks Animation acquired the rights to the series to make an animated feature film adaptation, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which was released on June 2, 2017, to positive reviews. After the main series concluded with the twelfth novel, Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot, in 2015, a spin-off series titled Dog Man was released the following year. The spin-off series has ten books so far.

Background

At a young age, Pilkey was diagnosed with ADHD and Dyslexia. Because of his diagnosis with those unfortunate learning abilities many of his teachers in elementary school had Pilkey sit in the hall and listen to class. This  is where he created the idea of Captain Underpants. '''Pilkey released his first novel The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby which was published in 2002. It quickly became a bester seller according to Schoalastic.com in an article titled About Dav Pilkey. After the success of his first novel, Pilkey took a break to focus on helping his father who was very sick. He decided to come back in 2009 and publish four new novels. As of 2022, Pilkey has created a youtube channel even though he hasn’t posted any content on it in a year he uses it as a platform to make announcements of new books, PSA’s, what to read, and many more	.'''

Controversy and Reception

According to the American Library Association, the Captain Underpants books were reported as some of the most banned and challenged books in the United States between 2000 and 2009 (13), as well as between 2010 and 2019. The books were named one of the top ten most banned and challenged books in 2002 (6), 2004 (4), 2005 (8), 2012 (1), 2013 (1), and 2018 (3). The Captain Underpants series was explicitly banned in some schools for “insensitivity, offensive language, encouraging disruptive behavior, LGBTQIA+ issues, violence, being unsuited to the age group, sexually explicit content, anti-family content, 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 toilet humor makes parents roll their eyes and kids giggle. The absurdity of banning books to attack perceived moral problems is exemplified by this year's winner." In October 2015, the 12th book received controversy due to a reference to Harold being gay. Some elementary schools have banned the book due the controversy.. On March 29, 2021, The Adventures of Ook and Gluk was pulled from shelves of bookstores and libraries after the publisher said it "perpetuates passive racism".

'''One of Pilkey's novels Ook and Gluk (Published in 2010) was about two best friends named Ook and Gluk. In the novel Ook and Gluk helped prevent a twenty-first century organization from removing all of the natural resources from their prehistoric world. They were able to achieve the task of prevention due to help from a kung-fu master named Master Wong from 2222 A.D. On March 22nd 2021, an Asian-American, named Kim, was deeply offended by how Asians were portrayed in the novel. He was frustrated with how the Asian characters had “dashes for eyes and the proverb-spouting Master Wong character” and that “Every child who has read this book has been conditioned to accept this racist image as okay or funny. It is this type of passive racism that has contributed to the continued hate and prejudice experienced by Asian Americans on a daily basis”. In his failed attempts to get his voice out there Kim decided to create a petition on Change.org that was titled “Scholastic Needs to Apologize for Publishing a  Children’s Book Full of Racist Imagery”. It took some time but Kim’s petition was a success as Pilkey and Scholastic agreed to stop all distribution of the novel. Then on March 25th Pilkey invited Kim to join a facetime where Kim discussed his point of view and Pilkey responded. Shortly afterwards on the same day Pilkey posted an apology to his Youtube channel.'''

Genre Section (New Section)

'''Dav Pilkey's style is unique and different which is nothing compared to other writers within the industry. With being different it made him one of the most famous writers in America according to Pilkey's style is unique because it is most straightforward but likes to create a sense of liveliness within it. He implements puns, jokes, colorful, different types of cartoons, and many more methods which makes it more appealing to the reader, especially children. Pilkey's illustrations are appealing as he uses allusions and mimics well known paintings as well, for example he used Leanardo De Vinci’s, Vincent Van Goh’s work in his novels in a way that is appealing to Children Pilkey is so talented at making his novels attractive to children that “James Howe wrote: "If it's been a while since you've heard a 5-year-old chortle, you owe it to yourself to think of Dav Pilkey when gift giving time rolls around." This is why Pilkey is such a peculiar individual to analyze when it comes to children's books as he is just simply different from anyone else.'''