MMGM: We Could Be Heroes by Margaret Finnegan

It isn't easy to set a book on fire, but if you are the owner of a piece of camping equipment called a Survival 4000 Fire Striker with Compass and Whistle, you just might be able to accomplish your mission. At least, that's what Hank Hudson, a sensitive fourth grader, thought when he tried to burn the 495 page book about the Nazis hunting down a young boy that his teacher was reading to the class, a book that he found particularly sad and upsetting.

Hank, who is autistic, generally likes spending his time alone, thinking about and collecting rocks for his vast collection, from which he selects three each day to keep in his pocket and help him through the day. Returning to school after a three day suspension for trying to burn the book, Hank is approached by Maisie Huang, a girl in his class who was totally impressed by Hank's act of rebelliousness. Maisie has decided that he has 'the meatballs' to help her accomplish her own bold-as-brass mission. And she has just the thing needed to get Hank interested - both her parents are geologists and there are lots of rocks at her house.

Maisie's mission is simple - after freeing her neighbor's pit bill Booler, Hank will take him and give him a good home. Booler has epilepsy and his owner, Mr. Jorgensen, keeps him outside and tied to a tree while his two other dogs have free run of the house and yard. Maisie thinks this is cruel and, since Mr. Jorgensen won't let her have the dog, she's devised a plan to free Booler, so he can be Hank's dog, instead.

Little by little, Hank and Maisie become friends, much to the delight of Hank's parents. Maisie is, after all, his first friend and they spend lots of time together acting out The Jungle Book, Hank's favorite movie, while hanging around with Booler in his yard, and sometimes looking for rocks together in the schoolyard. But Maisie can be a strong, determined, even manipulative personality, who is relentless in her need to save Booler. Hank, on the other hand, is quiet and generally content with his rocks. But he does feel Maisie's manipulation and after their first attempt at saving Booler fails, along with Hank's first attempt at lying, he has a complete meltdown and is asked to consider whether she is really a good friend. Yes,  Hank decides, she is. But that doesn't mean the two friends have given up on Booler, not by any stretch of the imagination.

We Could Be Heroes is told in the third person from Hank's point of view, which is an interesting perspective. Interesting because the story isn't about autism so much as it is about how Hank sees, experiences, and navigates the world as a person on the spectrum. I came away with a better understanding of autism, and particularly, autistic meltdowns and I think Finnegan made it very accessible for young readers to understand, as well. For example, Finnegan gave Hank the perfect geological description for the way his meltdowns might feel like to him: A'a is a Hawaiian word that describes the way the surface and bottom layers of lava cool at different rates after a volcanic eruption. With a meltdown, Hank experiences his body as out of sync. On the surface, he feels punctured and bruised by the way sounds, textures, colors, smells poke at him, while inside, he feels dense, heavy and immovable. Later, she describes how Hank's mother helps him regain a sense of evenness after a meltdown.

I have to admit I really didn't like Maisie at first for the same reason Hank is somewhat leery of her. But as Hank and Maisie's friendship begins to really solidify, I began to see her differently, so that by the time Maisie's truth finally comes out, I felt real empathy for her.

One thing I really liked in this book is that Hank's family is intact, that his parents marriage didn't end because of his autism, and that both parents are involved, understanding and, most importantly, patient.

We Could Be Heroes is at times very serious story, that deals with themes like autism, epilepsy, bullying, empathy, and friendships (both age appropriate and intergenerational), but it not one without humor and some very delicious sounding cookies. This is Margaret Finnegan's debut middle grade novel and it is a well-crafted open and honest look at what it means to be different without being less and living one's authentic truth. And definitely not to be missed.

You can find an extensive and very useful Discussion Guide for We Could Be Heroes HERE

Meet the Author:

Margaret Finnegan's work has appeared in FamilyFun, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, and other publications. She lives in South Pasadena, California, where she enjoys spending time with her family, walking her dog, and baking really good chocolate cakes. You can connect with her at MargaretFinnegan.com and 
on Twitter @FinneganBegin and
Instagram  @finneganbegin

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was gratefully received from Barb at Blue Slip Media

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle. 

Chester and Gus by Cammie McGovern

Chester, a chocolate lab, would have been a perfect service dog except for his fear of loud noises. Unable to be certified, Chester is chosen by the parents of a 10 year-old nonverbal boy with autism named Gus, hoping that Chester’s help, Gus will be able to attend public school. At first, Gus won’t even let Chester near him, but slowly allows to the dog near him. For his part, Chester knows he has found the person he was meant to be with.

Gus’s mother Sara is desperate for her son to be able to go the school with other children, and acting out of that desperation, she deceptively presents Chester as a certified service dog to the school’s principal. Placed in a classroom, Chester is a hit with the other students who basically ignore Gus. But not everyone is happy about having Chester around. A boy named Ed resents not being allowed to bring his dog to school, and the other fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Palmer, doesn’t want a dog distracting students and disrupting school routine. One bright spot for Gus is Mama, a cafeteria worker who loads the dishwasher and who simply accepts Gus for who he is.

But when it comes to light that Chester is not really a certified service dog, the principal tells Sara he can no longer accompany Gus to school until he is certified. But on Chester’s last day of school, he and Gus get separated during a fire drill, Gus is found in a closet unconscious and later diagnosed as having a seizure. Kept home from school for a few weeks, when Gus returns without Chester, he is badly beaten up by Ed, the class bully.

Sara decides to have Chester certified as a seizure response dog, and calls Penny, the person who originally trained him. But Penny has always had other ideas for Chester; convinced that he is an unusually intelligent dog, she wants to teach him to read and has not intention of returning Chester to Gus. 

 Will Chester ever return to his person, Gus?    

Chester and Gus is a story that will certainly pull at your heartstrings, particularly because the narrated point of view is done by a dog who connects with the boy for whom he was chosen. I thought this anthropomorphism was a particularly effective literary strategy for a book that is concerned with the limits of communication in order to be understood. Chester may understand much of what is going on with Gus, but he has no way of telling anyone. Gus can communicate with Chester, but not with the rest of the world. It feels like a real catch-22 and McGovern really has presented this frustrating situation successfully without resorting to being too ridiculous. 

And she has really captured Sara’s desperation for her son to be part of the world so well, but also the resistance from people who don’t understand or care about autistic children being able to gain some level of independent. When I was teaching, I didn’t run into too many Mrs. Palmers, but there were some who just couldn’t be flexible. 

Two things did bother me. While I could understand Sara’s motives, I didn’t like her deceiving the principal to get what she wanted. And I felt that Ms. Cooper, the teacher’s aide assigned to Gus, never really noticed what was going on with him at school, and she certainly should have been reprimanded for not staying with him during the fire drill. Instead. blame fell solely on Chester’s head for abandoning Gus.

Writing a book about an basically nonverbal autistic character isn’t an easy thing to do, but McGovern has succeeded at giving the reader a glimpse into what life is like for the children and their families.  

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was an EARC received from Edelweiss+