{"id":564,"date":"2015-07-18T18:45:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T18:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chimneyrabbit.com\/?p=564"},"modified":"2015-07-24T12:17:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-24T12:17:39","slug":"review-my-brother-is-a-superhero-by-david-solomons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/?p=564","title":{"rendered":"Review: My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"My<\/a>
\nThis is what would happen to me. Guaranteed. If an alien visited Earth and granted superpowers to one person, I’d just have stepped outside, or gone to make a sandwich, or (like Luke in My Brother is a Superhero<\/a> by David Solomons) needed to go for a wee.<\/p>\n

Luke knows everything there is to know about superheroes. His brother Zack is a bit boring, a bit of a swot, and spends most of his time with his nose in his schoolwork instead of in comics like any sane human being. So it’s just completely not fair<\/i>\u00a0that Zack is granted the powers of Star Lad, saviour of humanity, and Luke is left standing idly by.<\/p>\n

Zack doesn’t even want a cape or a mask, for goodness’ sake. He makes do with a hoodie to protect his identity when he’s out on patrol, using his powers to save people. He just doesn’t understand superheroes at all.<\/p>\n

David Solomons does<\/i>\u00a0understand superheroes, and comics, comic book fans, and general geekiness. Barely a page goes by without a reference to Batman or the SHIELD helicarrier or Star Wars. (Luke and Zack’s dad is a Star Wars fan – there’s a reason Luke is called Luke. It must be purely a coincidence that David Solomons’ own son is called Luke, too.)<\/p>\n

He also understands action and humour, and My Brother is a Superhero<\/i>\u00a0has both in abundance. When Star Lad is kidnapped by a supervillain, Luke and his friends Serge and Lara have to track him down before the end of the world – doom is coming to Planet Earth in the form of Nemesis (although Luke’s a bit shaky on who or what Nemesis is) and only Star Lad can save the world. It’s a race against time, and the story uses this urgency to keep the plot racing along.<\/p>\n

The frantic pace of the action is matched only by the quality of the jokes. The Internet acronym LOL is used far too often these days, but I did literally Laugh Out Loud several times reading this book. The geeky humour struck a real chord with me, from Luke’s geek references to Lara’s malapropisms and Serge’s in-depth knowledge of hack attacks on snack vending machines.<\/p>\n

There are simple chapter title illustrations by Laura Ellen Anderson that set the scene nicely for each chapter (and a neat flip-animation at the bottom right of the pages that might rightly be termed a spoiler). The red, yellow and blue cover with its sparkly starry background couldn’t be more appropriate, either.<\/p>\n

Geeky, exciting, and funny. Recommended.<\/p>\n

Oh, and there’s a free tie-in iOS game app<\/a>, too, at which I am less than competent.<\/p>\n

\"High<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is what would happen to me. Guaranteed. If an alien visited Earth and granted superpowers to one person, I’d just have stepped outside, or gone to make a sandwich, or (like Luke in My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons) needed to go for a wee. Luke knows everything there is to know… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/IMG_0062.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p37h7H-96","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.johnkfulton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}