Baron Von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident - Hardcover

McClements, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 015206138X ISBN 13: 9780152061388

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 2008

Synopsis

When Baron von Baddie defeats his nemesis, Captain Kapow, he discovers that it is not as much fun to create chaos and engage in bad behavior if no one tries to stop him.

About this title

About the Author

GEORGE MCCLEMENTS has written and illustrated several picture books, including Night of the Veggie Monster and The Last Badge. He lives in Glendale, California.

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 2—Baron von Baddie is an evil genius who creates rampaging robots and chaos wherever he goes. Luckily, Captain Kapow arrives regularly on the scene to apprehend his nemesis, jail him, and wait for the Baron's inevitable escape so the two can repeat the process again. One day the Baron accidentally succeeds in freezing the Captain solid and begins a life of uninterrupted crime—building new robots, changing the days of the week around, and eating a mountain of doughnuts. It only takes a couple of weeks, though, before the mad scientist realizes that his life has turned boring and he misses the Captain. After he creates a heat ray to unfreeze the superhero, the duo happily goes back to their good guy/bad guy routines. The mixed-media collages have a goofy retro-cartoonish panache that pairs well with the tongue-in-cheek text. The pages abound with heroic action, and the artist ably depicts the square-jawed, muscled Captain and diminutive gloved and lab-coated Baron. An insouciant romp with broad appeal.—Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI
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While superheroes may be super, they sure can be boring. This picture book takes an archvillain as its hero—the (very kid-looking) evil genius, Baron von Baddie. Every dastardly plan he comes up with is foiled by his foe, Captain Kapow, until one day the Baron accidentally triumphs over the forces of upstanding citizenship and freezes Captain Kapow in a block of ice. He revels in his newfound freedom to inflict evil with utter impunity, and sets about building giant robots, changing Tuesday to Wednesday, and eating donuts. Soon, though, he realizes that without a nemesis to act as a foil, being an evil genius quickly grows tiresome, so he unfreezes Captain Kapow, and the two return to their normal catch-and-escape ways. The cartoonish cut-paper illustrations are imaginative and fun, and von Baddie’s facial expressions while plotting various bits of light villainy are especially amusing. This gentle finger-waggle at bad behavior doesn’t try to have too much of a moral, which is why kids growing tired of goody-goody heroes will like it all the more. Grades K-2. --Ian Chipman

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 015206138X
• ISBN 13: 9780152061388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32