Captain Underpants Books in Order

Captain Underpants is the series that got a generation of reluctant readers reading: two fourth-grade troublemakers, George and Harold, hypnotize their principal into believing he is a superhero in his underwear, and across ten novels (1997-2015) Dav Pilkey weaponized flip-o-ramas, talking toilets and wedgie physics into some of the most banned - and most beloved - children's books ever published. The series is complete: Pilkey ended it in 2015 and pivoted to Dog Man, his even bigger follow-up franchise. The order question is the easiest on this site, with one honest catch - the two-part middle story (1997–2015).

Where to start

The Adventures of Captain Underpants (1997), book one - the hypnosis, the first flight, and the origin of every running gag. It is also the source material for the 2017 DreamWorks film. Honest alternative: start with the book the kid is laughing at; the series is episodic, and the only genuinely connected stretch is books 6 and 7.

Does the reading order matter?

Publication order, and it almost does not matter: each novel is one self-contained prank-war with a new villain, and the reset button is pressed every time. The one exception is the Bionic Booger Boy diptych - The Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1 (2003) and Part 2 (2003) is a single story split down the middle, ending the first half on a real cliffhanger, so those two must go together. After book eight (2006) the series went quiet for eight years while Pilkey cared for his ailing father; the final pair (2014-2015) brought it home.

Which one is the best?

Book one is the classic and the movie source. The Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space (#3) and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants (#4) - the book with the name-change chart that made every kid in America rename themselves - are the series' comedy peaks. The finale, The Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks-A-Lot (2015), landed a surprisingly moving ending that adult readers still write about. The spinoffs - Super Diaper Baby (2 books) and Dog Man - grew out of books the characters draw inside the novels.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: Dog Man books in order, Goosebumps books in order, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.