The Astounding Broccoli Boy
-
- 39,00 kr
Publisher Description
From Frank Cottrell Boyce—the beloved, award-winning, New York Times–bestselling author of Millions and Cosmic—comes another hilarious, heartbreaking, and completely original middle grade novel.
Rory Rooney likes to be prepared for anything. That sort of planning pays off when you’re the smallest kid in your class. Rory is even prepared (mostly) for Tommy-Lee, his nemesis, who starts most days by throwing Rory out of the back of the school bus. Don’t be scared, his favorite book says, be prepared. And Rory aims to be. What’s more heroic than that?
But Rory isn’t prepared when he suddenly and inexplicably turns green and finds himself stuck in an experimental hospital ward. The doctors are just as baffled as Rory is, and that’s when he begins to wonder: What if this isn’t caused by his genes, or a virus, or something he ate? What if it’s something even more extraordinary? After all, more than a few superheroes’ careers began when they turned green. Could this be a sign that he’s meant for something greater? Rory is going to find out—and that’s going to start with escaping from the hospital.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A cat flu epidemic (dubbed "Killer Kittens" by the media) has England in hysteria after 12-year-old Rory Rooney turns a "light broccoli green." Hospitalized for fear of contagion, Rory is horrified to learn that his equally green roommate is Tommy-Lee Komissky, a kickboxing champ who has terrorized Rory at school. A quick thinker, Rory determines that the skin tone they share with the Hulk and Green Goblin suggests a clear diagnosis: they have become superheroes. (Rory is further convinced after he apparently teleports to save his sleepwalking roommate from a rooftop fall.) The sleepwalking episodes launch the duo into London after dark, where they innocently break into Buckingham Palace, free all the zoo animals (collecting some penguin pals), and befriend the prime minister. In an afterword, Boyce (Cosmic) reveals his inspiration for this kooky, charming tale as the medieval legend of the green children of Woolpit, but the humorous hijinks are decidedly Dave Barry-esque. A lengthy novel told in short chapters, it also offers up a message worth embracing: "The thing that makes you different," Rory concludes, "is the thing that makes you Astounding." Ages 8 12.
