The Adventures of Beanboy

Harkrader, Lisa. The Adventures of Beanboy. 2012. 236p. ISBN 978-0-547-55078-7. Available at FIC HAR on the library shelves.

Tucker MacBean is your regular 7th graders. He hangs out with his friend Noah and takes care of his disabled younger brother, Beecher, but what he loves most are comic books, especially his hero, H2O. Their father left, and now lives far away in Boston. Their mother struggles to be a single parent, and works hard at the bank, then spends her nights taking classes at the local university.

Tucker is invisible at school, and that’s how he likes it. Except for Sam Zawicki, the meanest girl at his school. Always wearing combat boots, always with a bad attitude, Sam is feared by most kids at Tucker’s school. So when he collides with her at the comic book store, he rightly is scared for his life. Instead, she throws his newly purchased H2) comic book into a puddle and stalks off.

Tucker discovers that the publisher of H2O is seeking a sidekick to help the superhero, and is holding a contest. The best sidekick will earn his creator a full scholarship. Something his mother could desperately use. But Tucker can’t really work on this at home, because of Beecher. Fortunately, there is the Art Club after school. Unfortunately, the babysitter his mother hires to take care of Beecher is none other than Sam Zawicki. What was previously a once sided relationship of fear becomes something more. And as Tucker develops the story and the plot of Beanboy, he is forced to reconsider his opinion and his connection to Sam.

Illustrated with Tucker’s drawings of his new super sidekick, readers will enjoy this coming of age story.