An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE CYBORG CONSPIRACY

Esteemed Reader, if you haven't read the Banneker Bones books yet, that's cool. This is mostly going to be a post about writing that anyone could read as I'll avoid any major spoilers.

But seriously, when you get time, read those books:) I'll give you the first one free.

This afterword will probably mean more to those of you who have read the books and if I'm honest, you Esteemed Readers mean mean a little more to me:) I love every book I've published (written is a different story), but I love the Banneker Bones books the most.

For all that love, these have been my hardest books to write, and this third and final(ish) Banneker Bones story was the most difficult book I've ever written. That's not entirely its fault. When I started working on this book, neither the book nor I knew we'd be working together during 2020.

And that is how I think of my relationship with my books. It's never just me and my input in a story. You wouldn't want to read it if it was. Each story has its own demands that must be met and its own tone with which it must be told. 

Because Banneker Bones and the Alligator People ended on a major cliffhanger, a lot of the early chapters in this third book had to devote their time not only to resolving the events of the previous books, but exploring their ramifications. Even in a mostly fun adventure story, I have to treat grief seriously. To do less would be to cheat Esteemed Reader. Though I tried not to dwell on it.

Is Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy the end of The And Then Story? Not a chance. Banneker Bones and Ellicott Skullworth have plenty of adventures ahead of them.

Am I actually going to write them? That remains to be seen. I'd like to and on a long-enough time line, I probably will. But after a long break. Again, for all the fun I've had with our heroes and their villains, these books are super challenging to write.

Whatever Banneker book ends up being the last one I write, it will end on a cliffhanger. This is The And Then Story, as in, And Then something else happened. Always. 

But this wouldn't be a bad last book. A trilogy is perfectly respectable for a series and I like where everybody ends up at its conclusion. If I never write Banneker Bones 4, I'd still feel like I'd done right by my characters and told enough of their story to imply the rest.

On the other hand, there certainly is room for more story. And the nice thing about being this far along in a series is I feel I have a little more liberty than usual--not much, but some. For instance, this third book is the longest yet, and the second book was already getting a little long for middle grade. But I figure returning readers might like a little more book and a series has a way of getting more complicated and requiring more story as it goes.

This book also features chapters written from an adult's perspective. There's not many of them (8 out of 77), and they're mostly very short, but I wouldn't pull that sort of move in a standalone middle grade book. One chapter (27), not one of the short ones, is backstory we arguably don't need to understand the present story. It's indulgent in an already long book, but it fully realizes my character, compliments my theme, and deepens the story. I figure if Esteemed Reader is back for thirds, they also want a deeper story, so I'm giving them my Snyder Cut.

Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy was always meant to read like a waking nightmare for our heroes. The fact that its author happened to be living through the actual nightmare of 2020 enhanced this. But the inherent darker aspects of the story were in early drafts planned as far back as 2009 (there was always going to be a chapter titled "virtual school" even before I lived it).

Banneker Bones and the Alligator People was a pretty dark story, especially toward the end, but I believe the third act is where our heroes should be MOST tested. I've got an inkling for a fourth adventure, but I didn't hold anything back for it. I wanted to throw everything there was at the boys to see if they could be broken.

Unlike the first two adventures where the boys discovered new "monsters" and spent many a delightful chapter being chased by and doing battle with them, this third story is different. I wanted Banneker and Ellicott to face an enemy so powerful, they couldn't beat it. And I wanted this enemy to go after them specifically in a very personal way. And I wanted it to hurt them worse than they've been hurt before (and I've already spent two books hurting them). I wanted to see how'd they'd do when pushed to their point of breaking.

The first draft was too mean and played too rough. There was a lot of blood in that draft and far more violence than in the final version. This is where I thank God for my critique partners Shannon Alexander, Laura Martin, August Mugele, and Ed Cho, who reminded me that although this is a series intended for everyone, a lot of children read it:)

Without spoiling, I let this new(ish) monster really, really hurt the boys. I'm not writing Hunger Games here, but after two books, I wanted to raise the stakes. I made the boys' injuries so central to the plot that I couldn't chicken out and remove them later. I get messages from children who've read the first two books, some as young as eight (a bit younger than I would've imagined) and I know they're looking forward to this third installment. I read these books to my son, who's seven. 

I'm aware I'm pushing a boundary in this third book that will make some ADULT readers uncomfortable.

There's nothing so dark in this story that I think it will be harmful for a young reader or I wouldn't have published it. I think a lot of my younger (but every bit as esteemed) readers will love this book more because of the particular scene in question. The violence is implied rather than shown and is actually less violent than something that happens at the end of the previous book, which all of the readers in question will have presumably finished.

I've frequently reminisced about my joy in reading The Witches by Roald Dahl as a child. Much of my joy in that book came from the fact that the witches were actually scary, not just pretend, play-it-safe-for-baby scary, as evidenced by the way they actually harmed their victims rather than merely scaring them. Also, the story's blatant sexism and other problematic elements didn't bother me as a child since I didn't pick up on them until my adult years (you try growing up white and male in a small Indiana town in the 1980s surrounded by that culture, on a diet of that media, and then determine true north your first at-bat).

Anyway, we were discussing a book I wrote:) For a third book in a series, I feel it's important to raise the stakes. For this reason alone, Esteemed Reader should hope I don't write a fourth book. Who knows what I might do to our heroes next?

I want Esteemed Reader as nervous for our heroes as I was for the boy in the back of the hotel's grand hall surrounded by all those witches. Dahl didn't hurt that boy, the witches did. I didn't hurt our heroes. the (spoiler) did. However, Dahl showed me he meant business. He wasn't going to patronize me just because I was reading "a kid's book." He took his story, and more importantly, his reader, seriously. And I so appreciated it, I was a loyal reader then and I defend him now (read around the sexism and racism, or use them as a point of discussion).

Speaking of sexism, I got an email from a woman who was reading Banneker 2 each night with her son telling me how excited she was to encounter "the queen of the alligator people." I adore all messages from readers, but I particularly enjoyed this one as introducing strong female characters is something I've been consciously doing since the first book, and not just heroes.

The first book is very boy centric. I started with two boys forming a friendship because that's the sort of friendship I had and remember fondly from my own youth. I always wanted the villain to be a rich white man ala Lex Luthor and Kingpin because those sorts of villains actually exist. Reggie was nearly a girl, but Reggie's main plot function for two books is to be in need of rescuing, and I didn't think it was fair to saddle the lone girl character with that. 

So I settled for working in strong female characters in everywhere I could. Both the boys' mothers are admirable in different ways, Grandma Juanita's my favorite, and Ling always makes me smile. In Book 2, I added in more strong female characters and continued that through Book 3. If there is a book 4, I expect Padma Perkins to play a much larger role and I think Marianna Morales will continue to rise in status as Latimer City's number one reporter as Chip Lieberman fades into obscurity. 

One regret, however, is that I should've made the President in Book 1 a woman. The reason I didn't is because he started out as an actual President and then got revised to a fictional one (definitely the right call, thanks Uwe Stender for the suggestion). Still, it's been bugging me since that book was published, enough so that there's a tiny subplot around the election of a new President in this third book. Not to descend into politics, but I feel Elizabeth Warren was the best candidate for President we've ever had (if you feel differently, I don't care, it's fine, my Indiana vote didn't count in any primaries anyway). I hate the way the media treated her and the manner in which I frequently heard so brilliant a leader unfairly disparaged. 

My main motivation is always to tell a good story I think Esteemed Reader will enjoy, but fiction is political even if it tries not to be. I've made no secret of the fact that one of my secondary motivations for writing Banneker was to normalize adventures about an interracial family without directly addressing issues of race--who has time to worry about that stuff when giant robot bugs keep attacking:) But while I'm at it, I also wanted to normalize women in positions of power and neurodiversity and, perhaps most urgently, alligator people (among other concerns).

One other reason for me to consider stepping away from this series permanently is that technology moves almost faster than I can imagine and write. When I wrote the very first draft of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees, Ellicott's beloved Jukebook was a tablet that could hold any book. Thassit. That was the miraculous device I yearned to own in a futuristic world... and then a Kindle released in November of that year and I had to think of more advanced things for the Jukebook to do.

Between virtual reality and augmented reality, I suspect the lovely videogames my characters play on their holocoputer will seem quant within my lifetime (fine with me, gimme them games). Robots are advancing in ways I did not foresee, and I suspect I'm wrong about a whole lot of other stuff. That's okay, we had fun. 

So, it's at least possible the ending of this third book is my stop, where I'll get off and you'll continue on without me. This most recent cliffhanger ending opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, doesn't it? If I come back for more, I'll not lack for opportunities for new adventures.

But maybe it's better if you do it, Esteemed Reader. Why not? You've been half the team all along.

That's how this works. Me writing things down doesn't do any good unless you imagine them with me and create Banneker's world in your mind. All the pieces of that world we created together are still there. What do you think happens next, Esteemed Reader? I bet that story is at least as interesting as anything I could come up with and probably more so.

Here, I'll start you off: And then...

Middle Grade Ninja Episode 96: Author John Gallagher

To watch new episodes as they air, go to YouTube and subscribe.

Middle Grade Ninja is available on Soundcloud, Stitcher, itunes, Podbean, Podblaster, RadioPublic, blubrry, Listen Notes, Google Play, and many other fine locations.

John Gallagher and I nerd out about comics, action figures, Batman and all the best things in life, including his new comic book-ish novel, MAX MEOW: CAT CRUSADER. We also talk about his role as art director for RANGER RICK MAGAZINE, our mutual childhood dreams of being Robin, outlining while leaving room for fun, the importance of creating fast, launching a book series during a pandemic, the importance of a meatball from space, a possible ghost story, and so much more.

John Gallagher is the art director of the NWF’s “Ranger Rick” magazine, cofounder of “Kids Love Comics” (an organization that uses graphic novels to promote literacy), and leads workshops teaching kids how to create their own comics. John lives in Virginia with his wife and their three kids. Visit him at MaxMeow.Com, on twitter @johnBGallagher, on facebook @MaxMeowCatCrusader and on instagram @johngallagher_cartoonist.

Meet a secret superhero with CAT-ITUDE–Max Meow, Cat Crusader–in this purr-fectly awesome, hiss-sterically funny new graphic novel series!

Max is just a regular cat in Kittyopolis, trying to make it big as a podcaster UNTIL he accidentally takes a bite of an RADIOACTIVE SPACE MEATBALL at his best friend, scientist Mindy’s, SECRET LAB. Then before you can say MEOWZA, Max becomes…(drum roll!)…The CAT CRUSADER! Being a super hero is fun (Super strength? Check! Flying? YES!!!)–but not if you get so cocky, you forget your best friend! Will Max learn to listen? Will he and Mindy make up? And together, can Max and Mindy save Kittyopolis from the evil Agent M and BIG BOSS?! Find out in Max Meow: Cat Crusader-a laugh out loud, furr-ociously funny, action-packed new series filled with so many twists, turns, and terrific jokes it makes bad guys FLEA and kids cheer with glee! BONUS: Includes how to draw Max Meow!

“Funny, furry and fantastic!” —Judd Winick, New York Times Bestselling Creator of the Hilo series

“Max Meow’s super heroics will have kids meow-ling with laughter!” –John Patrick Green, creator of the InvestiGators series

MaxMeow.com

Book Review: THE GLOBAL WARMING EXPRESS by Marina Weber

First Paragraph(s): On a warm, sunny spring afternoon at the Penguin Burial Ground on the shore of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, a young emperor penguin named The Fluff wept for his mother. She had died after swallowing a piece of plastic floating in the ocean
After the funeral, his colony offered their sympathies and departed, leaving The Fluff alone, sitting on a rock and gazing out to sea. He remembered sitting on this same rock when he was much younger, on a cold, sunny spring day when they had buried his grandfather. Now the rock was underwater, and the sun felt hot on his back.

Make sure you find your way back here on Wednesday, Esteemed Reader, as Marina Weber will become the second youngest author in the history of this blog to face the 7 Questions, provided she's not too put off by some of the potentially offensive things I'm about to say (many of them quoted directly from her book).

Also, be warned, there will be some necessary politics involved in this review. Unavoidable. But it won't be all doom and gloom.  I promise to get cheerier before the end of the post.

Did you have yourself a good Thanksgiving, Esteemed Reader? Did you get yourself some delicious turkey, or at least some pumpkin pie? The ninja is now old enough to be considered one of the adults (when the heck did that happen!?!) and so was put in charge of cooking a ham. It was a big responsibility and I'm happy to report all 12 pounds of it were slow cooked over half a day to tender perfection and eaten by happy family members, which was enormously gratifying.

Did you sit around munching a bajillion calories and discussing politics?

Did your crazy uncle go off about how the red team is the best because although he himself is absolutely not a racist or a misogynist (how could you even think that!?!), he was happy to vote for one and wear that stupid MAGA hat that might as well be a white hood and now he's tired of winning?

Did your sloshed aunt counter with how the blue team is the best because a rigged primary process in a supposedly democratic system isn't actually that big a deal and outraged Bernie Bros should just shut up about it already (to heck with the will of the people!)?

Did anyone fret about that infamous joint study by professors from Princeton and Northwestern University, which demonstrated that from 1981 to 2002, congressional votes cast over those 20 years aligned with the popular opinion of average Americans less than eighteen percent of the time, ultimately concluding that "the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy?"

Me, I'm happy to report no politics were discussed over my succulent ham. In fact, I've been trying to read the news no more than once a day as recent politics make me so angry I shake with rage before I fall into despair that this is what's happened to the country I love.

Thankfully, Esteemed Reader, this blog is focused on the reading and writing of middle grade fiction. If there's anyplace where we can get a respite from politics, it's here. And today we're discussing a lovely story written and illustrated by two girls at the age of nine about some animals riding a magic train. Surely there could be nothing political about so innocuous a story. 

Except, the last thing The Global Warming Express intends to be is innocuous.

Alas, there is no way to discuss The Global Warming Express without discussing politics at least a little. After all, the book has a forward by Senator Tom Udall (I'd be curious to know how many non political middle grade books he's written a forward for). And there's a blurb on the back from Nancy Pelosi. And one of the most prominent locations in the story is the White House.

Make no mistake, Esteemed Reader, The Global Warming Express is a political book and it absolutely has an agenda. Not that that's a bad thing. Despite the adorable characters of a penguin and a harp seal, this is a story about a very urgent matter:

"I remember you!" Creamy cried loudly. "You had feathers sticking out all over you!"
"Yeah, that's why my dad named me The Fluff." then he said, "Can you help me? I need help. My land needs help. You need help!"

These characters make no bones about the fact that they are absolutely on a political mission, as are the book's author and illustrator (literally):

"We are going to Washington, D.C., to tell the president he needs to do something about global warming. At least, I think that's where we're heading. This train seems to have a mind of its own!"

The Global Warming Express is a fun and charming book that I absolutely recommend, even to readers who believe global warming is a hoax. Actually, I especially recommend it to those sorts of readers as they most need to hear Marina Weber's and Joanna Whysner's urgent message.

In an ideal world, global warming wouldn't be a political issue. The science is in and it is conclusive. This is an issue that must be addressed whether you prefer to be lied to on other issues by the politicians on the red side of the aisle or the blue one.

Unfortunately, the kind of broad sweeping changes necessary to combat global warming require actions be taken by our officials. Individual citizens can only do so much, but we must demand a better response to global warming from those in charge. The Global Warming Express is about citizens (and animals) doing just that. 

In that way, The Global Warming Express is in part a political pamphlet. That's not to say it's an entirely political book, which is why I'm going to make one more observation and then we're going to leave politics behind to focus on other aspects of the novel.

The president our heroes are voyaging to see is never directly named, nor is that president's face shown in the one illustration of him. But his hand is shown and it's clearly an African American's hand, which narrows down the options of which of our presidents is represented to exactly one (at the time of this review, anyway). In my own middle grade book, Banneker Bones receives a phone call from a president, who is also not named, but who I always thought of as an Obama type.

If I wrote Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees today, I don't know that I'd feature a president character as the office has so recently been sullied and my perception of that office has forever changed. The Global Warming Express was published in March of last year and written well before that. There is a captivating innocence to this tale of two girls and a bunch of animals earnestly believing that if they can just get their message to be heard by the leader of the country, cooler heads and obvious truths will prevail and action will be taken to stop global warming.

And so, the inevitable question I found myself asking as I read this book that was not intended by its creators, but which is forced to forefront all the same: would two nine-year-old girls writing a similar book today have such faith that reaching the current madman occupying the White House would result in a positive change? I don't know, can't know, but it's a depressing and troubling thought.

All right then, let's pivot away from the roaring Trumpster fire that is our present government and talk more about this book. It's not all doom and gloom. I did tell you there's a magic train, right:

Peering through the grimy window panes of the shed, they saw the train shake and shiver. They watched decades of dust and rust fall off its body until the old steam engine seemed to sparkle. Then the shed itself began to shake and rattle. The Fluff and Creamy were shaking and rattling too as they watched the train double in size before their eyes! Beautiful rainbow bubbles and fluttering butterflies filled the shed, and with a crash! the big doors flew open and the train moved into the clear moonlit night, stopping in front of the two friends.

Even more fun, the author and the illustrator are characters in this book, sort of like Kurt Vonnegut and Kilgore Trout meeting up in Breakfast of Champions (thanks Vonneguys!) to personally discuss some of the novels' themes, but way more fun and middle grade appropriate:

"Oh," Marina said, "it's smoke from a forest fire. We've always had fires in the summer; but in recent years, there have been more. Joanna, it smells like your dad is cooking breakfast!"

Joanna smiled. "It's because global warming is causing terrible droughts in this area," she said, serious again. "New Mexico has been in a drought for years."

The girls are extremely concerned about what's happening to their own environment and the environment of all the animals. And where are the icecaps going?

Much of the meat of The Global Warming Express is a dialogue between the girls and the many other passengers about the environmental impacts of mankind's actions. The book is very well researched and keeps its story moving while deftly weaving in the information readers need to know to appreciate our precarious situation:

"That's true," Marina replied. "The Earth has already warmed by about 0.8 degrees in the past century, and that causes a lot of damage."
"It doesn't sound like very much," interrupted Sally. "Isn't 0.8 even less that 1?"
"Well, that's in Celsius measurement; it's 1.5 degrees in Fahrenheit, the temperatures we're used to," Marina said.
"But 1.5. Isn't that less than 2, but for the Earth, even one degree is a big deal! It's like if my body's temperature went up two degrees...."
"Your mom would take you to the doctor!" Joanna said.
"That's called a fever," Marina added, "and right now, the Earth has a fever. If it keeps getting sicker like this, most of the animals and plants that live on it are going to die."

Learning about global warming is certainly not the only reason to read this book. You regular Esteemed Readers who want to write fiction for a middle grade audience should absolutely pick up a copy of The Global Warming Express to see what sort of story your target reader wants to tell when they're the ones doing the telling.

Something I at first found off putting about this book, and then found endearing, is the fact that most of the characters are Batman, by which I mean no one has any parents left alive. You'll remember that very first paragraph before I brought up all that political stuff finds our hero, The Fluff, weeping for his mother who died choking on a piece of plastic. Well, he's far from the only one who's lost his parents:

Creamy was a harp seal. Like all harp seals, Creamy had been left on the ice where she was born off eastern Greenland when she was only twelve days old. She wasn't ready to swim yet when, because of global warming, the ice she was on melted too early. She would have drowned if two kind-hearted wildlife biologists hadn't found her in the water and rescued her. They sent her to the zoo in San Diego, California, and now she would never see her parents again.

"Well, I'm not sure. I'm Flora. Um, can I join you?" she asked. "I don't have any family left." She hung her head. "And I'm really hungry!"
"Oh my!" The Fluff said. "Of course you can! None of us has any family left."

The purpose, I suspect, is to demonstrate the catastrophic effects of global warming in a way that's deeply personal to our heroes. And in this, it is effective. The reason I find it endearing is that I'm sort of touched by the thought that the worst possible things two nine-year-old girls could think of happening was the loss of family. And I can't say as how they're wrong. I'm a lot older and that's certainly one of the worst things I can think of happening as well.

And despite my distaste for any political news that isn't politicians in handcuffs (go Mueller, go!), I'm going to have to pay attention to politics. You too, Esteemed Reader. There's too much at stake not to.

And the great thing about The Global Warming Express is that's it not just a book. It's a movement among young people:

The Global Warming Express isn't nearly as cynical as the ninja. This is a tool to motivate young people (and adults) to get political. We don't have a choice. As distasteful as our present politics may be, we all have to live here and we need a here to live.

Despair is exactly how the worst of our current elites is would prefer we react to a system so clearly corrupt and broken, because despair promotes inaction. But remember, this is a country where slavery was once legal and gay marriage was not. Political change can and must come. So have a good cry if you must, but then get active. For as The Fluff says,  "I need help. My land needs help. You need help!"

And that's where we'll leave it for now. As always, I'll leave you with some of my favorite passages from The Global Warming Express:

As he neared the shore, he knew he was a long way from home but a lot closer to his dear Creamy. Hungry, worried, and suddenly feeling very warm, The Fluff tied up his boat and went looking for air conditioning and a cold shower.

Inside the house, Marina woke her friend Joanna. "I think there's something outside," she whispered.

"Uuuhhh... lee me lone," yawned Joanna.

"Now, energy companies are looking for other, more difficult ways to get at fossil fuels, like drilling deep in the ocean and in remote natural preserves."

"I know what preserves are. Yum!" Joanna said.

With a deep sigh, Inoah corrected her: "Not that kind! We're talking about land that is preserved, kept safe, and treasured. Get it?"

"And some people still don't agree that all this human activity is causing this fast warming!" Joanna said.

"Well, it certainly isn't animal activity," squeaked Sally.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: All reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own. 

Book Review: BATGIRL AT SUPER HERO HIGH by Lisa Yee

First Paragraph(s): Oh, sure, there were injuries. Lumps and bruises were an occupational hazard. Sometimes it was because a muscle-bound metahuman was momentarily careless when working out in Wildcat’s phys ed class. Or because a flyer took a turn a tad too sharply and slammed into a wall (or a fellow student or the cafeteria) at full speed. Or because of something like what had just happened: an invading interstellar alien army had targeted the student population for total enslavement to the powers of evil…which was all part of the daily routine at Super Hero High School. And most of the super heroes in training loved it. 
Now, as the young heroes flew, ran, stretched, strolled, and teleported into the auditorium, they laughed and congratulated each other. They admired their new casts and bandages and bruises. Never had so many been so sore—and so happy about it.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this over the course of this blog, Esteemed Reader, but I'm something of a fan of Batman and other superheroes. As I recently told you in a post featuring a Batman gif, I'm plunging myself back into the world of middle grade writing and working on a second adventure for Banneker Bones, my character based on Batman.

Lisa Yee is a middle grade author I've wanted to feature here since I read her wonderful Millicent Min, Girl Genius and she'll be here on Thursday, so look forward to that. When I saw she was writing the Super Hero High series, I wanted to read it at once (and so will you when I tell you more). Batgirl and Supergirl are two of my favorite characters and Lisa Yee is an author I admire, so I knew I was in for a treat. And this was the perfect book for me to read in preparation for my own project.

What a fun series this is! It's clever and hit all the right notes for a middle grade book for girls about girls that can also amuse a grown man who still likes his comics. Super Hero High is like Hogwarts if Hogwarts had way cooler students based on DC characters. Personally, I would never want to go back to high school unless it was Super Hero High, and then I might consider it, because I'd love to take these classes:

In PE, instead of running laps around a track, they were often asked to run laps around the city. And in Weaponomics, they were learning about devices that could cause mass destruction—or save the world. As the school’s part-time tech wizard, Batgirl had seen it all.

As Principal Amanda Waller warns Barbara Gordon, A.K.A. Batgirl:

This isn’t like your old high school. Here, we train students to save lives, make the world a better place, and lead by example. There are villains who will aim to bring you and the world down. We have to be prepared for that.”

Obviously, as Amanda Waller is principal of a high school, Super Hero High is set in its own continuity separate from any other DC story. Although I can't say for certain as Harley Quinn's Super Hero High book doesn't come out until January, I'm guessing she didn't fall in love with the Joker after obtaining her doctorate in kindergarten. I'm also betting money that Batgirl won't be shot in the spine and paralyzed before the end of the series, though Yee does endow her with all the technical know how she'll need if she ever does become Oracle. 

In this version of the DC Universe, Dr. Arkham is a school counselor, which strikes me as rather ominous. More fun, Crazy Quilt is teaching costume making, and Red Tornado and Comissioner James Gordon are on the faculty as well (more on him in a moment). Steve Trevor is working at the local Capes and Cowls Cafe and wouldn't you know it, Batgirl's classmate Wonder Woman (the girl) has a crush on him. The reader is running into other characters from the DC universe every other chapter, sometimes literally:

“Barbara reporting to Supergirl. Supergirl, do you read me?” 
Her wafer-thin com bracelet crackled before she heard “Oops, ouch! Sorry! Sorry.” There was a moment of silence, followed by a loud thud, and then Supergirl’s voice came in. “Hey there, BFF. I flew too fast and The Flash was running too fast and we had a major collision. But we’re both okay. At least, I think we are. He looks sort of wobbly. What’s up?”

Sorry fellas, but the focus of this series is on the female characters of the DCU, most of them as teenagers. Aside from the Flash and Cyborg, I didn't spot a teenage Auquaman, or even Robin. But I think I would've enjoyed this series even as a teenage boy as superheroes of both sexes make for the most fun adventures.There are plenty of stories focusing on teenage Superman, but that's for another series.

Yee is careful to maintain the essential essence of every character in the DCU without being a slave to the source material. Yes, Harley's a bit crazy, but mostly about media and her own fame, and one gets the sense that in this version of the DCU, she might grow up to be... not good, exactly, but not bad bad either. As for Barbara Gordon, who mostly goes by the name Batgirl in school, Yee has lots of fun along the way with an oh-so-slight rearranging of her mythology:

Batgirl was relieved that she got to keep her annex, or as she referred to it, her Barbara-Assisted Technology Bunker. This was also called the Bat-Bunker.

Of all the characters present, I felt that Batgirl was the most true to her comic book self. When Red Tornado insists the teen super heroes learn to drive non-super-people vehicles so they can blend in as necessary (half of them will grow up to have secret identities, after all), Barbara naturally chooses the motorcycle, because it is her destiny.

Yee wisely shifts the novel's focus from the superhero aspects of our teen superheroes' lives to the more universal situations faced even by regular human teenagers without superpowers. At the end of the day, this is primarily a story about a girl and her father readers know from Batman comics, which is what most Batgirl stories have always been about. Commissioner Gordon wants his little girl to be safe and needs to learn to back off, Barbara Gordon wants to be a super hero, but needs to remember her father cares about her and has her best interest at heart. Though I did find it quite funny that Gordon, who is on the faculty at Super Hero High, wants his daughter to go to Gotham City High School where she'll be safe. It's like, Bro, do you even read Batman comics?

What makes Yee's version of Batgirl all the more interesting is that she employs an intellectual response to her problems the same as her young readers can. This is how she handles her father's objections to her attending a school for superheroes:

Barbara knew she couldn’t argue with her dad’s feelings. She also knew he couldn’t argue with facts. Employing complex computer graphs and charts featuring a matrix of statistics to support her argument and supplemented by state-of-the-art videos, she worked deep into the night. 
The next day was Saturday. That afternoon Barbara invited her father into the living room. Her presentation took over an hour, and as Commissioner Gordon sat in his favorite chair nodding, neither smiling nor frowning, Barbara piled fact upon fact and reason upon reason as to why she should be allowed to go to Super Hero High.

It's good that Barbara is ready to use her brain, as she's at a school where most of the students outmatch her in the brawn department. Most of her fellow students "were born with powers, or developed special skills at a young age. Her peers had been nurtured at super hero preschools, then super hero elementary and middle schools. Conversely, Batgirl was a latecomer and had to make up for a lot of lost time." 

In doing everything she can to fit in with superheroes, not to mention running most of the school's IT needs, and taking care of a sick bat, and also competing in a reality show, Batgirl runs herself down and has to learn how to manage her time and her life, which is a lesson needed by most teens and their parents and everyone:

“People think I’m stressed,” she told him. “But really, I’m not. Okay, okay, maybe a little. Sometimes. But not all the time. Not when I’m asleep!” She let out a too-loud laugh. Batgirl kept dreaming about all the things she was supposed to get done and would wake up exhausted


Batgirl at Super Hero High is a fun story filled with beloved characters used in new and interesting ways. It's chock full of humor and charm and soars high (look at me, I'm Gene Shalit!). Although, even in the fantastical world of the DCU, one still runs across the occasional troll.

“NO!” he yelled. The sides of his mouth curled downward and there was insult in his eyes. “Not you!” 
Batgirl stopped. 
“In my day, super heroes could fly and move buildings, and were all men. NOT GIRLS!” Mr. Morris grumbled. 
Batgirl continued to remove the shoes, then lent a hand to help him up. 
“Next time,” he grumbled, “I want a real super hero, not a girl.”

Me, I just say that adds a degree of realism to a story, that while unrealistic, is absolutely accessible to younger readers. You should absolutely add this series to your reading list and for sure check back here on Thursday to see Lisa Yee face the 7 Questions. 

As always, I'll leave you with some of my favorite passages from Batgirl at Super Hero High:


No one dared move, and Miss Martian couldn’t because Killer Frost had just frozen her, “as a joke.” The only sound in the cavernous auditorium was a tiny ping coming from Cyborg’s internal circuitry.

 Batgirl felt an icy chill go through her entire body. “Ice to meet you,” Captain Cold said.

"When you meet new people, you should always hit them hard, and if that doesn’t work, hit them harder. Remember to always lead with a punch. BOOM!” 
“When I meet someone new, I prefer to lead with a smile,” Batgirl said, offering her one. 
Barda looked at her with suspicion.


Everyone applauded and Cyborg smiled. He had a nice smile. Cyborg lifted his arm to wave, and wave, and wave. It wasn’t until a minute had passed that Batgirl realized he was malfunctioning and couldn’t stop waving.

The library installation had gone well. Now students were able to access books and resource material from their dorm rooms, space vehicles, anywhere—though many still congregated at the heavy wooden tables in the library that were lit with old-fashioned green banker’s lamps. 
“It feels so awesomely retro and academic to study in here,” Hawkgirl whispered. 
“I know!” Batgirl agreed. “I know…but this is where all the knowledge is. I love the smell of information in this room.” 
Just as she was about to sniff an old leather-bound copy of Ra’s al Ghul’s The Decline of the Ancient World, someone cried, “THERE YOU ARE!”

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: All reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own. 

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES Part Two: Let's Talk About Magic (and, of course, Batman)

This is a continuation of the three-part afterword for Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees. If you're reading this after reading part one and you haven't read the book, you're obviously interested. I promise the actual book is better than this afterword for it, so why not go read it, then come back so you don't have to worry about the spoilers ahead. You can try out the first five chapters for free here.

From this sentence forward, I'm assuming any Esteemed Readers still with me have read the book, so I'm not going to worry about casually dropping spoilers.

I've talked elsewhere about how writing involves an element of magic. Whether it actually does or whether my subconscious simply plays wacky tricks on me, I prefer to believe in magic. Encountering that magic is one of my chief reasons for writing. When I try to explain this to non-writers I get met with blank stares and people nodding while slowly backing away. Fair enough.

Writing is tedious and hard and takes a whole lot of time and effort, frequently without paying back a fraction of what it costs in labor. Believing in magic enables me to do my job. And besides, magic is the only way I know to explain Banneker Bones. If you can think of a more rational explanation, keep it to yourself please, as I still have to write the rest of Banneker Bones 2 and I'll need confidence in magic to get me through:)

I had a plan. I had an outline and I even had a title: Banneker Bones and the Case of the Alligator People. I knew this story was the first in a series I would call The And Then Story, named after the way I used to tell stories as a child, excited and out of breath, unable to speak the words fast enough, and never getting to the end, because and then something else happened. When I was three, I amused my relatives and a waitress by telling a story about Snoopy that lasted a nice dinner because every time I approached an ending, I'd say "and then."

And so it's to be with Banneker Bones. I don't know what's going to happen in this series. I wish I were J.K. Rowling (who doesn't?) with a master plan for seven intricately entwined novels adding up to a cohesive whole. I'm sure my readers also wish I were J.K. Rowling, but I'm not, and beyond the second story in this series, I don't have a plan. I can see as far ahead as what I'm writing now and that's it. But at the end of Banneker 2, I'll write "and then" and eventually Banneker 3 will present itself.

And after all, Batman, on whom Banneker is based, and who himself is a rip-off of Zorro, is an "and then story." Batman never really retires, whatever silly-third-movie-making-when-he-shoulda-stopped-at-two Christopher Nolan thinks, and Batman's story is never really over. There's always another villain to fight and another chance to save people and/or Gotham City and/or the world/universe/multiverse.

When I decided Banneker was a story without an ending, I knew I had to model him after the one story I never get tired of reading. I could lie and pretend not to follow comics (who is this Batman character you speak of?) and claim Banneker was a completely original idea (no such thing), but the entire contents of this blog, this review in particular, and the fact that every third picture that has ever been taken of me is of me wearing a Batman T-shirt would prove me a liar:)

Not to worry, I've hidden references to Batman throughout this and my other books to acknowledge my debt. When I get to writer heaven, if Bob Kane feels sore about it, we can fight it out. There's a character in this story named Frank Nolan Kane, which is hands down the nerdiest name I've ever given any character in any story. His first name was nearly Tim, but in a fight between The Dark Knight Returns and Batman (1989), Frank Miller wins. Not to worry, there's a Mayor Burton late in the story and a bright red phone kept under a glass case. My wife and son aren't the only ones this story is a love letter to:) Batman fans may note there is no character in this story named "Joel" or "Schumacher" as Batman and Robin can never be forgiven.

For this first book in the series, my goals were modest: introduce my characters and their world and try not to rule out any future possibilities. Latimer City is a big place and there all sorts of interesting people and things waiting to encounter our heroes and when they arrive, I'll be just as surprised as Esteemed Reader. In Book One, I've simply tried not to preclude the possibilities of all the adventures to come.

The And Then Story has a little bit of everything. I've rarely been so happy as when I spent a morning writing a long chapter for this book (the chapters were made shorter in revisions) that opened with an attack by velociraptors and closed with an attack by sharks. There aren't any aliens in this story (unless they look like people, and they might) and no one travels through time, but I've got a lot of books to fill, so we may see both those things in future Banneker sequels. All Together Now: A Zombie Story was originally envisioned as Banneker 3 until the tone of that story ruled it out for middle grade readers (Banneker will never be that dark). This series will end when I'm no longer able to write it. The book I write before an asteroid strikes me will simply be the last one. Until then, there's always going to be another Banneker whether I write it down or not.

So, knowing going in that I was writing a book with no ending, I did my best to pick characters I like and would want to spend multiple books with. In college, I had a girlfriend who believed whole-heartedly in astrology and she quoted a never-ending stream of pseudo science at me and all I really remember from the hours of nonsense spewed (her being very attractive the whole time) is that I was born on an astrological cusp between the signs of Leo and Virgo, which is a most conflicting spot. Virgo is the shy worker, Leo is the proud dreamer, and a person such as myself born smack dab in the center exhibits both qualities in almost equal measure. I don't know that anything else in astrology is reliable, but that internal conflict of personality explained to me much of my behavior throughout my life.

And so in picking characters that would always be interesting to me, I centered them in this very conflict (I never get tired of writing about myself!). Ellicott is too shy for his own good and Banneker is too proud for his own good. From experience, I know that both humility and confidence serve a person well and so my boy-genius detectives balance each other. As a writer, it does me no good to believe my book is the best thing ever written as I need to revise, rewrite, and make it better. On the other hand, if I weren't an egomaniac believing everything I write is probably going to be the best thing ever written, I wouldn't write anything. Poor Mrs. Ninja is good enough to put up with me on the days I'm convinced I'm a literary lion and on the days when I despair I'm a no-talent hack.

Getting back to the plan, my outline called for Ellicott to be summoned to the Archimedes Program in Latimer City where he would meet his cousin Banneker Bones and the two would set off on an adventure involving alligator people (I thought it was funny to introduce robots to the story, then ignore them in favor of a plot about biological monsters). It was a simple plan. The first five chapters would introduce Ellicott and tell the story of his leaving Brownsborough, Indiana for Latimer City, all of which would be ordinary and plain like the black-and-white scenes of The Wizard of Oz (big thanks to literary agent Amy Tipton for the suggestion). Once in Latimer City, I would introduce robots and other fantastic elements, colorizing the world. At chapter six, Ellicott would meet Banneker, the two would become friends, and the rest of the book would revolve around alligator people.

And so, I was minding my business, writing my story, and when I got to the part where Ellicott reaches Latimer City, he and his mother are attacked by a security robot, which is quite dramatic and fun. Not to worry, the security robot is stopped and no one gets hurt (I warned you there'd be spoilers). And then in Chapter Six, this happened:

     From the end of the hall, Ellicott heard a sound like someone choking on a peanut butter sandwich. When he looked, he saw a boy about his age with dark skin standing in the far doorway, his hand cupped to his mouth to hold in his wild laughter.

     All Ellicott could see of the boy’s face was his hand, the trilby hat he was wearing, and his huge, square glasses. But that was enough.

     So, this was the world-famous Banneker Bones.

What the heck is that!?! I didn't write Chapter Seven until a month later. I had a perfectly good outline and Banneker Bones made me throw the whole thing out. In the story, he's laughing at Ellicott, but I assure you, he's also laughing at me. Because Banneker decided to sick the security robot on Ellicott all on his own. I didn't decide it, nor was I consulted. He just did it and I couldn't make him not do it, even though there was no room in the outline for such shenanigans.

It turned out Banneker Bones was kind of a jerk. He didn't want to share his room with Ellicott and he was determined to get his cousin sent home. And this is why I say writing is magic. Banneker Bones exists as a character in another reality I've had the good fortune to meet. If he were solely my creation or under my control, he would've saved me a whole lot of time and played his role the way the outline called for. But noooo, he had to do things his own way and that's when I realized I was in Banneker's world. I serve his needs, not the other way around.

So for chapter after chapter, Banneker tortured Ellicott and in Chapter Twenty-Four he decided to moon all of Latimer City while flying a jet pack. By the time Banneker was done doing exactly what he wanted, he'd completely altered the plot of the book and there was no longer enough space left for the alligator people, who got bumped to book two (as long as Banneker's okay with it, so we'll see). For this reason, I haven't bothered outlining the coming stories. It wouldn't matter if I did.

Banneker does what he wants the way he wants. I just write it down. He doesn't care that Ellicott is technically the protagonist of this book. It's his name in the title much bigger on the cover than the other words because that's the way he wants it.

But not to worry, I got my revenge on Banneker. While I was passing on many of my own attributes to him (embarrassing as some of them may be), I gave him my greatest fear: bees. Then I set some giant robot bees after him and every time they attacked him I'd laugh the way he laughed at me and I'd think that's what you get for screwing up my story! But of course, without Banneker, there wouldn't be any story in the first place.

Join me in part three for further discussion of bees, a shout-out to Richard Adams, and as usual, a session of making fun of Ayn Rand (something else I never get tired of).

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES Part One: Let's Talk About Race (and get it over with)

The following is a three-part afterword for Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees. You don't have to have read the book to read this first post (I'm saving heavy spoilers for parts 2 and 3). I'm mostly going to talk about the book, but I'm also going to talk about race.

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees isn't about race. In fact, the story goes out of its way to avoid the topic of race and I have no plans to address it in Banneker's future adventures (I'm well into writing part 2 now), though I have and will continue to address it in books outside of this series. The way I see it, by not addressing race in the Banneker Bones books, I'm making my biggest statement on the subject.

This book is about love. Honestly, as giant robot bees are a nightmare of mine from childhood, it's also about fear. But it's mostly about love:)

I can't tell you where most of my ideas come from--they just sort of come to me, usually when I'm thinking about something else. But I can tell you exactly where I was when I had the idea for this story: Seven years ago, I was driving on Indiana's most boring highway (it's nothing but cornfields and a creepy white church I inserted into my zombie tales) and talking with my future wife about an adult horror book I was no longer enjoying writing. I'd previously written some middle grade books and I'd very nearly had one of them published by a major house (back when there were more than five of them), which let me know I should probably write another. 

Most every middle grade book I read at that time was a knock off of Harry Potter: likable protagonist with surprising supernatural ability gets word that he/she has been invited to live someplace magical where hi-jinks ensue. Fair enough. This plot was old when J.K. Rowling got hold of it and it's likely to stay with us long after both she and I and all the other writers currently taking a shot at it are gone. Still, reading those books got me thinking. If an owl were to have brought me a letter when I was eleven, where would I most have wanted to have been invited?

I was also in my late twenties and a new candidate named Barack Obama looked like he had a shot at being President, which was good because I was a white man deeply and truly and forever in love with a black woman and looking for signs that our one day having a child in traditionally racist America wasn't a terrible idea. 

It was this line of thinking that led me to start poking around bookstores in search of books our child might one day read and I saw something that had always been true, I just hadn't ever really seen it: the section for books about black kids was sparse and depressing. There are several great books for children of all races written by authors of all races, but white kids have long had a lot more media available to them staring white kids. Growing up white in a small Indiana town, this had never struck me as unusual. I was white and so was almost everyone I knew. 

But looking at the kids bookshelves as an adult and future father of a half-black child, I didn't care for the looks of all those white kids on book covers as far as the eye could see. The one-shelf selection of books about black kids was mostly books about the civil rights movement and slavery, both of which are important, and both of which make for lousy leisure reading. Where were the books about black kids going to magic school, or riding a giant peach, or touring a chocolate factory? There were books about white kids having exciting adventures with their black friends, but that's not the same thing at all, and there were no books about biracial kids having adventures.

Obviously, there is no requirement that the character of a book be similar to the reader. I have enjoyed reading Watership Down numerous times despite not being a rabbit. One reason we read is to gain perspective from points of view unlike our own. Still, for there to be NO books whatsoever about biracial children in the largest bookstore in Indiana's largest city--it didn't sit well with me.

And so, getting back to that car ride with my future wife, I was complaining about this very thing and she told me it had always been that way for her. When she was a kid, her father read her Black History flashcards so she would know this country was not built by white people alone. And she always fantasized about one day writing a version of Encyclopedia Brown staring a black detective she'd named Banneker Jones, after the flashcard for Benjamin Banneker. 

I had two responses to that: 1. Great name, but Indiana Jones pretty well used up "Jones" for everyone, so his name should be Bones and his sidekick would be Skullworth, which struck me as a funny name. 2. Batman was the world's greatest detective:) 

And that pretty well got my wheels turning, because the answer to my previous question was: If an owl had brought me an invitation to go anywhere when I was eleven, I would've picked Gotham City. If that owl came today, I'd opt for a nice beach, but as a child I didn't know that red 'R' Robin wears on his chest may as well be a target and being Batman's sidekick has long been a fantasy of mine--not sure what it says about me that I imagined myself in that role and not the cape and cowl. 

For more than a year I sat on the story while working on something else, and little by little all the pieces fell into place. I would take the viewpoint of the sidekick, who like me, was a lonely white boy growing up in a small Indiana town trapped in a school he found less than interesting, and I'd make my dream come true for him. And the star of the show would be a biracial boy detective who in many ways is probably a more accurate version of myself at age eleven (my apologies to my poor parents).

And most important to me, the story would mention race just the once, and then drop it:

Ellicott wondered what it would be like to live in a family in which everyone was a different skin color. Most of the families in Brownsborough were all one skin color, including his. Now that he considered it, he supposed it was sort of boring that way.

I identify the race of each character, and then I tell the story of what happens to them. This isn't a book about slavery or civil rights or the racism so many have had to overcome and are still overcoming. Those books are available and should be read, but this book is for my son. So when he goes to find a book about a boy who looks like him, here's one that's just for fun. Banneker Bones rides a jet pack and has a robot butler and is too busy getting in adventures to worry about what it means to have a white father and a black mother or to care what other people might think of it. When it came time to do the book's cover, I asked artists Adam Smith and Steven Novak to make Banneker look like this guy:

I don't spend a great deal of my time worrying about what it means to be married to a black woman. It's not that "I don't see race." My wife has very nice skin and I like seeing it. Growing up black in Ronald Reagan's America has gone a long way to making her who she is, and that's the person I love most. But usually the only time the subject of our different races comes up is when some external person or situation brings it to our attention and then we remember, oh yeah, that's still a thing for some people.

Banneker Bones lives in a world that's moved past all that. He lives in the world I want for my son (but with fewer robot bees). And I'm pleased to say that the real world is slowly moving in that direction, even if it takes forever. Racism will never die, it will only multiply--it's too useful a tool of conformity and social control and we can't realistically divide all people permanently into shirts and skins. But I do think we're approaching a time of a browner, more unified America (it's all of us versus the 1%), and that angry racist buzzing you hear in the media is just old wasps who know winter is coming and their time is nearly done.

I've been reworking Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees for half a decade now. Of all the books I've yet written, it's my favorite and the most important to me. It's the reason I started this blog and the reason I decided to publish independently. Many individual editors at traditional publishing houses were interested and no one could've fought harder for this book than my agent, Uwe Stender, but you try getting a book about a biracial boy past an editorial board, let alone one written by a white guy from Indiana.

The story of Ellicott Skullworth finding a home in Latimer City (I totally used those flashcards for names throughout the book) is the story of me falling in love and finding my own home. It's a love story for my wife and it's a book written with love for my son.

In the 2nd and 3rd parts of this afterword, I'll talk more about the plot of this book and the choices I made because regular Esteemed Readers like it when I talk about those things. Now that we've discussed race, let's please, please, please talk about something more interesting:)

Halloween Giveaway and a FREE Book

TO WIN, ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS COMMENT ON THIS POST AND/OR HEAD TO AMAZON ON HALLOWEEN ONLY TO GET YOUR FREE COPY OF THE NINJA'S BOOK

Hi there, Esteemed Reader. As promised, the blog will get a little flaky from here to the holidays as I've got some deadlines to meet and my son is due to be born in December. Lots of changes are headed my way and rather than abandoning the blog as I've done in the past, I'm just going to slow it way down. I've got some fabulous literary agent interviews lined up for you and a couple wonderful writer interviews as well, but after I post those, I'm going to stop soliciting interviews for a time as I'm not sure when I'll return to regular posting. From now through to the new year, posting will be sparse.

I love this blog, but through the holidays I'm going to focus on preparing The And Then Story (actual title and cover to be revealed soon) for publication next year as well as finishing my new MG book. Oh, and that whole new baby thing:) I'll also be doing some guest posts and interviews elsewhere in the coming months and I'll be posting the links here. After years of helping writers promote their books, I've got some book promotion of my own to do.

The upside is publishers often send me books I'm not sure what to do with, so I'm going to give them to you. I've got two activity books: My Monster Bubble Writer by Linda Scott (perfect for the season) and The Super Book For Super-Heroes by Jason Ford. To win one of them, leave a comment on this post between now and Monday, November 4th. On Monday, I'll announce the winners and mail out the books.

Only two Esteemed Readers can win one of those books as I only have one copy of each, but you all win a copy of my book All Together Now: A Zombie Story, which will be available for free download all day tomorrow. After Halloween, the price returns to normal, and if you want me to tell you a scary story, you'll have to pay me:)



Here's some details about the books:

My Monster Bubblewriter Book is an activity book to inspire and encourage creativity with both words and drawing. It teaches children how to create cool hand lettering, using their imaginations to create crazy alphabets—from monster-inspired scripts to patchwork letters.

Along the way, members of the Bubblewriter Gang appear to show their own special monster alphabets and offer tips and hints throughout the book, including how to invent monster characters. It is monstrously good fun!

The Super Book for Super Heroes is a compendium of ideas, drawing, coloring, and activities that allows you to create your own crusaders for justice who do battle with super villains, unravelling their crazed schemes for taking over the world.

You will learn to draw villains such as the Mad Scientist, Bog Creature, and Evil Robot, while also creating superheroes, their sidekicks, secret hideouts, outfits, and super gadgets. And there are superpowers to discover – such as invisibility, super strength, speed, flight, heat vision, teleportation, and X-ray vision.

Fifteen-year-old Ricky Genero is writing a journal of the zombie apocalypse. His high school has burned to the ground, his friends are all either dead or shambling corpses roaming the earth in search of human flesh, and his best friend died saving his six-year-old brother Chuck from a zombie horde. When Chuck is bitten and infected with the zombie virus, Ricky must travel among the walking dead in search of a cure.

WARNING: This YOUNG ADULT novel is mean and nasty and intended for a mature audience. It is absolutely not appropriate for younger readers. All Together Now: A Zombie Story is a gruesome, repugnant tale featuring horrific acts of violence sure to warp young minds.