Public School Superhero

Public School Superhero by James Patterson and Chris Tebbetts is a school story for 9 year olds about a boy who is only brave inside his own head.

What happens

Kenny Wright is starting sixth grade at Union Middle School and he's scared stiff. In his head he's Stainlezz Steel, who fears nothing. In real life he's the quiet chess player whose grandmother walks him to the gates.

That grandmother is the best thing in the book. G-ma spent sixty-one years in the public schools, she still tutors there three afternoons a week, and she has an opinion about EVERYTHING. (Kenny adores her. He'd also very much like her to stay at home on day one.)

The school is rough. Twenty-five desks for twenty-eight children, a library the size of a cupboard, and Tiny Simpkins wanting Kenny's seat. Then Kenny gets caught in the middle of somebody else's food fight and walks out with a detention he did nothing to earn.

So he does what a lot of children would do. He hides it. What follows is Kenny sprinting up corridors and inventing excuses, trying to keep one secret away from the one person who'd be most disappointed.

Reading it is like having Kenny talk straight at you. He's funny about everybody, himself included, and you get the things he'd never say out loud as well as the things he does.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Kenny is picked up like a gym bag, stuffed inside a locker and punched in the chest, and nobody who walks past helps him. His route home goes by men on a corner swapping money for small bags. And there's an afternoon when a group he's tagged along with steals from a shop and runs.

None of it is dwelt on and Kenny never joins in, which is rather the point of him. But a sheltered nine-year-old might find it a lot. A reader who already likes stories about older children and real school trouble will take it as honest rather than frightening.

What to read next

If they'd like another boy working out what to do about the person making his life miserable, try Jake Drake in Bully Buster. Jake tells his own story too, and he reckons he's been a bully-magnet since preschool.