Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers

Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers is a time-travelling comic adventure for 7 year olds that goes right back to the week George and Harold first met.

What happens

It's the ninth Captain Underpants book. It opens with the boys under arrest, and then Tippy Tinkletrousers stomps in wearing a giant pair of robot trousers. When his fight with Captain Underpants goes wrong, he zaps himself five years back in time.

Which is where most of the book happens. Harold is six, very quiet and draws monsters and superheroes all day. George is the new boy next door, sent off to his first day at his new school in a tie.

Then George sees a gang of much bigger kids taking Harold's dinner money. Their leader is Kipper Krupp, nephew of the head teacher (yes, THAT Mr Krupp). George fights back with his tie. Who knew a tie could be a weapon?

Cue a week of sneaky revenge to win back the little ones' money. There's a swapped padlock, a made-up ghost called Wedgie Magee, ghost-chilli pizzas and a pair of haunted trousers on stilts. You find out where George's flat-top came from, and you get the boys' very first comic (a policeman with a dog's head).

If your reader already loves the series, this origin story is the treat. It's chunky but fast. The print is big, there are drawings on nearly every page and the boys' comics keep all their spelling mistakes. The fights are in Flip-E-Rama, where you swipe between two pages to make the pictures move.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The bullying is properly nasty (wedgies, threats and stolen money) and the revenge is very much cheered on. Harold's parents have just divorced and his dad has moved away (it's mentioned briefly). The narrator twice uses a word that's a slur against disabled people in British English. And the boys' comic has a fortune-teller drawn as an old "Gypsy" stereotype. A child who's been picked on might find some of it close to home, but most fans will just giggle.

It's also the first half of a two-part story. It stops on a cliffhanger and carries straight on in the tenth book, the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers, so have that one ready. Brand new to George and Harold? The first book, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, is in the library and is the place to start.

What to read next

If making comics with your best mate is the bit they love, try The 13-Storey Treehouse. Andy does the writing and Terry does the drawing, just like George and Harold, only their treehouse has a tank of man-eating sharks.