The Legend of Dav Pilkey

Dav Pilkey is an extraordinary author who writes funny children’s books for every child to enjoy. He made many famous books that everyone remembers reading as a child like the Captain Underpants series. The two books I’ll be talking about are Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkle Trousers” and “Dog Man Unleashed. Both books are one of the best works he has written to this date.  Dav Pilkey’s influence and impact on children’s lives is very significant through his work from the many books he has written throughout his life.

Dav Pilkey was given an ADHD and dyslexia diagnosis when he was a young child. His teachers had to force him to sit outside in the hallways each day because he was such a disruption in class. Fortunately, Dav enjoyed drawing and making up stories, so he passed the time in the hallway by producing his own unique comic books, including the very first adventures of Dog Man and Captain Underpants. He would let his imagination take control and would write masterpieces. (About Dav Pilkey) His “goofy” nature in the classroom has been taken and put into the work he writes. He puts his own personality and emotion into the books he wrote which led him to such a successful career. So even though he would get in trouble in school a lot, it paid off because he could correlate that into his writing.

Since then, Dav has created other best-selling and honor-winning children’s books, including The Paperboy, which won the Caldecott Honor. His graphic novels for Captain Underpants and Dog Man have sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into other languages. Dav and his wife live in the Pacific Northwest, but people from all over the world serve as inspiration for his writing. His works explore themes that are uplifting to all people. (About Dav Pilkey)

Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers follows two best friends who are the main protagonists in the story, George Beard and Harold Hutchins. They are known as the biggest troublemakers and pranksters around the school. Captain Underpants is the hero in this book and he is actually the principal of the school but got turned into Captain Underpants by Geoge and Harold using hypnotism. Captain Underpants only wears a cape and underwear and goes around the city defeating villains. He is a really funny looking character that can make the audience really engaged in the book.  Dav Pickley’s art and illustrations are all eye-capturing and appeal to a child’s eye. Imagine seeing a bald man with underwear lifting a giant humanoid robot and throwing him or a whole classroom of students shooting spitballs at each other. Dav Pickley knows how to make his art stand out in many different ways that many people can’t do. A lesson that Dav Pilkey is trying to communicate with children that read his books and through his art illustration is that don’t judge someone based on appearance and be able along with anyone no matter what. That is why Captain Underpants is a really good book for children to pick up. The antagonist of this particular book is Tippy Tinkletrousers, a villain that pops up multiple times throughout the series and whose main goal is to take over the world and destroy Captain Underpants. The real reason for his evil ways is children laughing at his real name “Poopypants”.

Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers take a look into time travel and how traveling into the future and past alters history and possibly destroy the world you live in. It’s very interesting because it’s a very advanced topic Dav Pilkey chose and he made it into something children can understand and enjoy. Tippy Tinkletrousers travels to the future at the beginning of the book. People think he is the real Tinkletrousers and they ask him to build a statue of the warden but he just builds himself a massive robot and during the presentation on the statue, he presents the robot to everyone and he starts freezing everyone. Captain Underpants comes in and beats Tinkletrousers but he manages to escape and go back to the past. Then it takes the reader into the past and shows how George and Harold meet and how they deal with typical bullies. George and Harold scare off these bullies in one scene but while the bullies are running away Tippy Tinkletrouser pops up out of thin air in his beaten-up robot and scares the bullies even more. The police accuses Principal Kupp(Captain Underpants other persona) of making the kids go insane which makes him lose his job. This means George and Harold never hypnotized the principal into being Captain Underpants. Tinkletrousers then travels back into the future in the same timeline as before and he finds out that now the whole world is burning in a wasteland. Talking toilets and zombie nerds rule the world. When he realizes his mistake he tries to travel back in time again but he gets stepped on by George and Harold who are giant zombie nerds. This is a really interesting and fun book for children to read with a lot of funny moments. It also engages them in a whole new world they have never seen before. It is easy to pick up Dav Pickley’s nature and personality from reading this book. Dav Pickley made Captain Underpants in 2nd grade and he didn’t change much about the characters at all because he didn’t have to. The characters he creates are all silly and immature throughout this book and the rest of his books. Dav Pickley’s illustrations also impact how the child that is reading his interacts and engages with the book. Dav Pickley writes a masterpiece of a book with how appealing his illustrations are to the young eye (An Interview with Dav Pickley).

Dog Man Unleashed is about Dog man and his battles with Flat Petey and Flippy. Dog man is half dog and half man. Dog Man doesn’t particularly speak but he writes stuff down and he understands what people are saying really well. He likes to go by the name “The Bark Knight” which is very similar to “The Dark Knight” which is a reference to Batman. Flat Petey is a paper version of Petey which is an evil cat. Flat Petey was created by Petey when he was in prison. Flippy is a butterflyfish who gained psychic abilities when he ate too much of an item called Brain Dots.

The chief of police’s birthday is coming up so Dog Man wants to get him a present. Dog Man decides to get him “Brain Dots” and a fish. Brian Dots are little consumable balls that can make someone smarter. Dog Man also accidentally gets the captain an evil fish. The captain receives this gift and is very grateful but he accidentally spills the Brain Dots into the fishbowl and the fish ends up consuming it. Petey the Cat breaks out of jail by making a life-size cutout of himself and acting as though he is pinned under a bulletin board. The security guard dials 911, and they then take the paper Petey to a witch doctor, who breathes life into it by spraying it with fluid. Petey ends up escaping and starts stealing everyone’s money but Petey ends up getting caught and he goes back to jail but paper Petey is still on the loose. He is stealing everyone’s money but someone tries to steal the money away from him, it’s the Captain’s fish. The fish has physical powers now and chases the cat around trying to steal the money away from the cat and right behind them are the police and Dog Man who are trying to catch them both. They end up running up a mountain where the fish freezes. Paper Petey was still on the loose on the mountain but Dog Man ends up licking paper Petey and he ends up freezing too. The chief tells Dog Man that it was his favorite birthday he has ever had. Dog Man seems like such a simple book but it’s an extremely well-written book with little to no flaws. Dav Pickley wrote this book taking into account what would keep children focused. He would put himself into the shoes of his characters and write about them as though he was the character themselves. Dog Man didn’t fit in much and when Dav Pickley was young he didn’t fit in, so most of his work today is based on himself and his experiences in life (An Interview with Dav Pickley).  “It’s YOUR story, kid. You can color it any way you want” (Dav Pickley). Dav Pickley also wants children to enjoy his artwork no matter what. The illustrations Dav Pickley does, are meant to stand out to the child and let their imagination run loose.

Both these books are important books to children because they show many lessons and it’s a fun read for them. Dav Pilkey is a master at writing children’s books and he is far from retiring. He influenced and impacted many children’s lives with his comedic books. “Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkle Trousers” and “Dog Man Unleashed” are two books that children all over the world can enjoy.

 Dav Pickley’s influence and impact on children’s lives is very significant through his work from the many books he has written throughout his life. “Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkle Trousers” is the eighth book out of the 13 Captain Underpants series. It takes children to a world of time travel and what would happen if you alter one thing in the past and the consequences that come with it. It’s a really engaging and enjoyable book that children love to read. “Dog Man Unleashed” is another engaging and fun experience for kids to read as it is the 2nd book out of the 10 books in the Dog Man series. It follows this dog who was made to be the ultimate hero and he tries to defeat a cat who is his archnemesis that wretches havoc and chaos on the city. Both of these books are one of his most famous books and work to this date. The main reason I chose these books is because Dav Pickley said himself that he personally enjoyed writing these books the most. The more I looked into these books, the more I became interested in them therefore I decided to choose the books to write about. Dav Pickley’s writing and illustrations are a work of art that not many people can do. He has a tremendous impact on children growing up which is something to be grateful for.