My Brother's Hero
By (Author) Adrian Fogelin
3
Peachtree Publishers,U.S.
Peachtree Publishers
13th September 2005
United States
Children
Fiction
FIC
Short-listed for Sunshine State Young Reader's Award (Grades 3-5) 2007
Paperback
224
Width 152mm, Height 216mm, Spine 14mm
283g
An unexpected turn of events pushes Ben Floyd out of his normal small neighborhood routine, and into an unexpected appreciation for his old life. Ben Floyd has a lot on his mind. In only eighteen months he will be old enough to get a learner's permit to drive, but that seems like a lifetime away. Ben enjoys the close-knit group of friends in his small neighborhood, but lately he has been longing for a taste of adventure. Keeping an eye on his younger brother Cody is getting to be a big responsibility. And he is confused by complicated feelings he has for his lifelong friend, Cass. When the Floyd family ends up in the Florida Keys over Christmas vacation, Ben gains a welcome opportunity to escape his routines. He meets Mica, an independent, strong-willed girl who lives a nomadic life aboard a boat with her marine biologist father. Together Ben, Cody, and Mica explore the interior canals and coastal waterways, but Ben soon realizes that adventure sometimes brings danger, and that at the center of Mica's seemingly charmed life lies a mysterious loneliness. Young readers will relate to Ben's conflicting feelings and growing restlessness as they experience this realistic, thoughtful, and sometimes humorous portrait of adolescence by award-winning author Adrian Fogelin.
"As in Adrian Fogelin's previous novels, Crossing Jordan and Anna Casey's Place in the World, this story has plenty of action, but it's the emotional drama, revealed in funny, realistic dialogue and spot-on descriptions, that distinguish the novel. Readers just leaping into adolescence will easily connect with Ben, who is both sharply observant of and bewildered by the adult world and his own place in it."Booklist
Adrian Fogelin earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and worked as a librarian and as an illustrator for the Baltimore Zoo. The author of several novels for middle readers and young adults, Adrian makes regular appearances in schools and libraries and teaches creative writing. Her special interests include managing family land for wildlife conservation, running a food bank and library for her neighborhood, and singing in a duo called Hot Tamale. She lives in Florida.