Review by Woodrow Phoenix

Over the course of ten books, the Dog Man series has become an interestingly multi-layered continuing story, centred around the emotional development of Petey the evil cat from a stereotypical archvillain into a conflicted antihero who has some quite powerful moral dilemmas to resolve.

Dog Man himself, with his limited range of expression has been largely sidelined by Petey to the point where he’s a supporting character in his own book. Twenty Thousand Fleas Under The Sea, the 11th Dog Man book gives the canine hero a little more to do but is still quite Petey-centric, with a plot driven by the usual silliness that this time involves Piggy, ruthless leader of the Fleas (an acronym for Fuzzy Little Evil Animal Squad) and his friends Crunky the gorilla and Bob the crocodile. They were previously reduced to insect size by a shrink ray, and locked up in ‘Mini Jail’ which is a prison the size of a large shoebox. Piggy’s plans to escape involve an enlarging ray and a flying submarine.

Dav Pilkey applies all his kid-pleasing powers in the pages of this story with several inventively annoying songs that will torment parents everywhere, lots of Flip-o-Rama fights, bites and tricks, and another appearance by the Supa Buddies, now including Molly the psychokinetic tadpole, to save the day. His engagingly wacky plots go in a few directions to work all 14 members of his ensemble cast into the story, but all the seemingly unrelated actions join up into one big lesson about teamwork and the importance of helping each other to move on and grow up. More positive encouragement for young readers and the adults who buy them these stories in the next book, The Scarlet Shedder.