By: Phyllis Root
He does have support from best friends Ruthie, who’s passionate about reforming everything, and Joe, who draws the art for the Night Man comics Reggie writes. He also becomes Best Buddy to kindergartner Charlie, a young boy who, Reggie learns when he volunteers with a youth group at a local shelter, is homeless. At the shelter Reggie develops a relationship with one of the residents, Dave, who leaves suddenly. When Reggie learns that the youth leader, George, to whom he looks up is also leaving he feels abandoned. | 8th Grade Superzero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, opens with Reggie’s fantasy of really being a superhero in his school, standing up to school bully (and former friend) Donovan, getting the beautiful girl, being profiled on the school TV show. His fantasy is rudely interrupted by real life, in which he’s gotten the nickname Pukey because he threw up in front of everyone at the school assembly the first day. His dad is currently out of work, he gets dragooned into being campaign manager for wildly unpopular Vicky in the school president elections, an, making matters more tense at home, his sister declares she’s giving up basketball and trying out for cheerleading. |
Working at the shelter opens Reggie’s eyes, and when he’s fired by Vicky as campaign manager, he decides to run for president himself on a campaign of reaching out into the community, particularly the homeless shelter. Although he eventually stands up to Donovan’s bullying, an unintentional result is that Charley, who’s also being bullied, adopts Reggie’s method of insulting the bully and gets in trouble. The night of the big dance and election announcement rolls around, and Reggie gets to dance with the girl of his dreams. |
The events in the book are organized by date and time, and between the pause before the announcement of who won the election and the next day’s chapter is a marvelous use of white space in which we learn who won and also, because it happens in the space between chapters, that winning wasn’t really the important thing anyway. The book ends with students from Reggie’s school becoming more involved with the homeless shelter, Reggie and his friend beginning a documentary project on the shelter, Reggie’s home-life settling down somewhat (although his dad is still jobless), and Reggie realizing that (at least for now) Ruthie is really the girl for him. |
This book is funny, with believable dialogue and situations. Issues of homelessness and discrimination are addressed as events in the plot; Reggie’s dad, for instance, is from Jamaica and lost his job because of protesting discrimination. But these events are not the focus of the book, just part of life for an eighth grade superzero who becomes a superhero in his own life. A very satisfying read. |