Pablo and Splash Roman holiday Roman holiday /

In this third series entry, the penguin buddies travel back in time to ancient Rome on a dare. What could go wrong? Promising an irritatingly skeptical classmate proof that they can "krilly" time travel, Pablo and Splash board the TimeBender invented by their favorite scientist, pink-haired Professor O'Brain, for another junket into the past. Somehow unsurprisingly, given their penchant for chaos, after touching off an eruption from Mount Vesuvius and searching fruitlessly for the Leaning Tower of Pizza, they fetch up in the Colosseum in Rome. There, they join an assortment of captive exotic birds that are slated for slaughter by gladiators for the amusement of the crowd. The spirits of Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges loom large in these ancient antics as the squabbling penguins bloodlessly (if not pooplessly) go on to turn the tables on their captors and pull off a general rescue with help from some 300-pound Kumimanu (extinct giant penguin) cousins from prehistoric New Zealand. ("Woah," exclaims a voice in the crowd, "those are some BIG BIRDS.") Potty humor and repeated exclamations of "Oh my COD" make the frantic scramble all the more enjoyable. Dempsey's cartoon panels are as bright and sunny as the story. More riotous pickles to waddle through for this Antarctic odd couple. (Colosseum and natural history facts, drawing lesson)(Graphic adventure. 7-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.