<i>Captain Nobody</i> (review)
2009; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 63; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.0.1219
ISSN1558-6766
Autores ResumoReviewed by: Captain Nobody Karen Coats Pitchford, Dean. Captain Nobody. Putnam, 2009 [208p]. ISBN 978-0-399-25034-7 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4–6 Despite the fact that ten-year-old Newt Newman practically runs the household for his busy, distracted parents and his football superstar brother, the most anyone ever says about him outside his home is “I didn’t know Chris Newman had a little brother!” A few days before Halloween, Chris suffers injury in the Big Game, and, even though there are no signs of significant damage, he ends up in a coma. With his parents constantly at the hospital leaving Newt home alone to worry, Newt forgets about the holiday, but his friends don’t; they piece together a costume from some of Chris’s hand-me-downs. When Newt pulls on the mask made from a sweatband with Chris’s initials on it, he feels strangely powerful, and his heroic adventures as Captain Nobody begin. Pitchford, whose inspired pen brought the world the lyrics to such feel-good songs as “Fame,” “Footloose,” and “Holding Out for a Hero,” displays a canny talent for drafting dreams with universal appeal; his keen sensibility produces an absolutely credible and thoroughly likable ten-year-old living in a big shadow. Newt isn’t bitter about his supporting-role status, just a little lost amidst the giants he lives with. His adventures as Captain Nobody are hilarious in a cover-your-eyes sort of way, but nobody else is actually harmed, and Newt himself suffers only mild injuries, just enough to deflect media attention away from his brother and onto the other hero in the Newman family. Readers who’ve ever felt a little left out (and who hasn’t?) will enjoy Newt’s triumph and may even fashion masks of their own in order to find the hero within. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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