TUNE IN...
Fans can find out what's happening with their favorite series and characters this summer. A million-copy printing and one-day laydown (August 15) marks the eighth adventure of the notorious caped BVD crusader: Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People by Dav Pilkey. George and Harold's time-traveling Purple Potty transports them to a world populated by kind teachers and where students dine on gourmet cafeteria food. But things grow even more bizarre when Crackers and Sulu are petknapped from the heroes' locker by their evil twins. (Scholastic/Blue Sky, $19.99 176p ages 7-10 ISBN 0-439-90381-5; $4.99 paper ISBN 0-439-37614-9; Aug.)
House of the Red Fish by Graham Salisbury continues the story of 13-year-old Tomi Nagaki, the son of Japanese immigrants living in Hawaii, begun in Under the Blood-Red Sun. The narrative picks up more than a year after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the arrest of Tomi's father and grandfather. Here the teen grapples with anti—Japanese-American attitudes as he attempts to rescue his father's fishing boat, sunk in the canal by the army's attack. (Random/Lamb, $16.95 160p ages 12-up ISBN 0-385-73121-3; July)
Cynthia Voigt brings to a close her Bad Girls series with Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do?; the author first introduced the memorable duo in The Bad Girls (in a starred review, PW wrote, "If Thelma and Louise had met in fifth grade they might have taken lessons in bravado from Mikey and Margalo, the heroines of this tart, subversive and wholly entertaining comedy"). Now ninth graders, Mikey and Margalo find the tables have turned: people want to sit with them in the cafeteria and even (gasp) ask their advice. (S&S/ Atheneum, $17.95 448p ages 12-up ISBN 0-689-82474-2; July)
"Readers don't have to share goth girl Raven's passion for vampire lore to appreciate her misadventures in Dullsville," said PW of Vampire Kisses. Now in Vampire Kisses 3: Vampireville by Ellen Schreiber, Raven's relationship with her perfect boyfriend grows more complicated, as Alexander can only come out at night. Add to that, his rival, Jagger, is in town, and Jagger's sister is smitten with Raven's enemy, Trevor, as Dullsville hovers at the precipice of transforming into Vampireville. (HarperCollins/Tegen, $15.99 192p ages 12-up ISBN 0-06-077625-0; Aug.)
PW said of The It Girl, which starred one of Cecil von Ziegesar's Gossip Girl characters, "The author serves up plenty of juicy plotting, and Gossip Girl fans will likely go for this, too." In the follow-up, Notorious, Jenny Humphrey, Callie, Brett and even Tinsley are back for more adventures and competition for the best men on campus. (Little, Brown, $9.99 paper 280p ages 15-up ISBN 0-316-01186-X; July)
Readers who enjoyed gaining access to Cindy Bixby's diary entries in Hazing Meri Sugarman will want to read more in Meri Strikes Back by M. Apostolina. Cindy, who kissed Meri's boyfriend and pushed Meri out of the picture in book one, attempts to put her Rumson U. sorority back together again. But banished Meri has a plan to bring down Alpha Beta Kappa. (Simon Pulse, $8.99 352p ages 14-up ISBN 1-4169-1163-4; July)
Now living with her father in Manhattan and having made up with her pals, 15-year-old Mimi from The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber looks forward to a better second term at school in All Q, No A: More Tales of a 10th-Grade Social Climber by Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser. However, a school paper assignment, her father's girlfriend and a new romantic interest introduce challenges to her newly ironed-out life. (Houghton/ Graphia, $7.99 paper ISBN 0-618-66378-9; July)
In The Long-Lost Map, the second installment in the paper-over-board Ulysses Moore series by Pierdomenico Baccalario, illus. by Iacopo Bruno, trans. from the Italian by Leah Janeczko, 11-year-old twins Jason and Julia, along with their friend Rick, pass through a magical door in their old English manor (from book one, The Door to Time) and stumble into ancient Egypt—and a quest to discover an important hidden map. (Scholastic, $12.99 272p ages 9-12 ISBN 0-439-77439-X; July)
