From The Trouble with Heroes, by Kate Messner:
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"I’ve had plenty of mean teachers, the kind who just want you to shut up while they drink coffee and wait to retire, and I can deal with that just fine. It’s the nice ones you have to watch out for."
Book Review: The Trouble with Heroes
"The Trouble with Heroes" is the 2025 selection for "Richardson Reads One Book". It is available from the Richardson Public Library. :-)
Grade: B+
This is a first-person story. The narrator is Finn Connelly, a troubled 13-year-old boy in 7th grade. He gets in trouble at school and is required to do make-up work over the summer. From the excerpt above, readers will rightly guess the teacher who assigned the summer work turns out to be one of the "nice ones". The work includes writing a series of poems about his personal heroes. He also has physical education tasks to make up. That involves completing 46 hikes over the summer, specifically climbing the tallest 46 Adirondack peaks in New York.
Finn is growing up without his father, who had demons he was dealing with, contributing to his eventual death. Finn gradually learns to accept and forgive his father for his failings, and recognize the merits his father had. Finn finds out his father also hiked the 46 peaks. The poems Finn writes, which make up many chapters of this book, advance the story in part through their connection to his father. The whole novel is very well written. The connections between Finn and his father are revealed one by one at just the right times when Finn is receptive to learning them. The plot devices may be just a tad too convenient, but this is how children learn how literature is constructed. Get it for the kid in middle school in your house. Or for yourself. It's a quick and easy read. It's an uplifting tale that we all are in need of right now.
Reviews of prior selections for "Richardson Reads One Book":
- 2025: "Wild Chocolate" B+
- 2024: "Symphony of Secrets" B+
- 2023: "Remarkably Bright Creatures" B+
- 2022: "Behold the Dreamers" B+
- 2020, 2021: "This Tender Land" B+
- 2019: "Bluebird, Bluebird" B+
- 2018: "The Circle" Didn't read the book. Saw the movie first. That review explains all.
- 2017: "Sing for Your Life" C+
- 2016: "Spare Parts" C+
- 2015: "We Are Called to Rise" C+
- 2014: "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" B-
- 2013: "The Book Thief" A-
- 2012: "One Amazing Thing" C+
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