No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy!īut his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes-like his parents and two best friends-stay super. His building is full of larger-than-life characters who keep things interesting, but underlying everything are those blasted frets, just waiting to get in Portico’s way.A middle grade novel about the greatest young superhero you’ve never heard of, filled with illustrations by Raúl the Third! He keeps busy and distracted by running around his apartment complex with his best friend, Zola, having little adventures while acting like Stuntboy, a kind of superhero who exists to keep others protected (again, hey there, recognizable anxiety). But all of their constant arguing is taking its toll on him, causing those frets to crop up more and more frequently. As someone who has an anxiety disorder with panic attacks, I sure recognized how quickly Portico’s mind would leap from “this thing might not be okay” to “AUGH! QUICK! MOVE! ACT! PANIC!” Portico’s parents are splitting up, something he doesn’t particularly understand until quite far into the book. The rest of us would probably call them an anxiety disorder.
Portico has “the frets,” as he calls them. Given it’s written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Raul the Third, I figured it would be great. As far as I can tell, there are not really a whole lot of middle grade books that address the mental health of boys, period, so when I saw this title, about a Black boy dealing with anxiety, I tracked it down right away. This was another book I sought out as I worked on my article for School Library Journal on mental health rep in middle grade books (look for that March 2022!). Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all. Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too-as soon as he figures out how. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives.Īll this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle.
His mom calls where they live an apartment building. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too.
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