#Emperor Pickletein Rides the Bus

[unforeseen-idiot]

Emperor Pickletein Rides the Bus

Oh boy, the grand finale of a grand series. To be honest Princess Labelmaker is more of a climax to the series than this book is, but that’s ok. I like to think of this book as a great epilogue, just helping our favorite characters get to their happy endings and giving us some fun stories along the way. This book is interesting since it’s a story being told in semi-real time. At least the case file follows one singular day and some of its entries happen in real time. This is just a cool idea and helps keep things fresh. Anyway though this book also focuses on our main 7th graders even though Remi and Murky get little chapters of their own (some more fulfilling than others *sob). Dwight and Kellen are fun in this book since they basically just vibe the whole time, absolutely no drama whatsoever (I mean Kellen did the paper airplane thing and got mad at Lance, but Dwight was perfect). Some fun stories include Sara’s first chapter with her field trip haikus (I’m not really surprised that Sara writes haikus), the tragedy of Mrs. Porterfield and the TURTLE, Sara again, getting Rhondella to stop texting her Bib Fortuna boyfriend, and made you look because it’s just so accurate to middle school. I liked the use of Fruit-i-gami Yoda since it kinda helped show that our main cast doesn’t really need Origami Yoda anymore and neither does Dwight, he was there for a few final bits of advice to finish the character arcs but he wasn’t as common. This serves to my theory that as the story of the books go on the kids need Origami Yoda less and less (when the series starts every chapter is dedicated to a kid asking for advice but now Origami Yoda is hardly even present) and Dwight, who I think used him as a way to relate to his classmates that couldn’t understand him, is now ready to let go of him since he has a support system now and people who have grown to appreciate and understand him. It’s honestly a great character arc that I definitely couldn’t pick up on as a kid. And with that we have Harvey who carries around Pickletein, an annoying jag who just serves piss everyone off. I remember starting this book thinking why is Harvey doing this, he’s on our side now. But then I actually thought to answer my question, why is Harvey doing this, and I realized (like Tommy does later) that Harvey has similar mental processes to Dwight but handles them differently. He has a lot of passion and emotion, but it goes unnoticed since like Dwight, people don’t really understand Harvey. I think that Harvey sees Dwight adjusting to life, but Harvey still hasn’t and can’t understand why, if Dwight can do it why can’t he. So he makes Pickletein so he can have some way of relating to the world on this field trip. But when he keeps pissing people off on this field trip they all get rightfully mad at him and it’s all building in him, finally when Tommy gets kissed by Sara he just can’t take it anymore and punches him, and he immediately regrets it because he’s not a bad person, just emotional and confused, and when Tommy forgives him that’s the understanding he needs to finally find peace in himself and gain the same support system that Dwight has. Ok I realize I may be reading to much into that and I don’t have any basis for this knowledge, but it’s how I see it and I think it’s a great character arc for the both of them. Back to the fluffier stuff, the astronaut ice cream thing was hilarious throughout its time, and the fact that it paid off so well kills me every time. Amy and Lanlan have the funniest and realest time ever in this book, honestly Amy is so real in this book. The great respect given to the Bell X-1. Freaking Mr. Good Clean Fun. The ending showing how everyone has grown into better people thanks to Dwight and Origami Yoda (and that Dwight really hasn’t changed, rather the people around him changed for the better), and that Origami Yoda is in fact real I believe it. In conclusion, thank you Tom Angleberger for creating an amazing series and ending it properly.