Book Description
for Making Up Megaboy by Virginia Walter and Katrina Roeckelein
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
No one in the suburban community of Santa Rosita, California, knows why 13-year-old Robbie Jones walked into a liquor store and shot and killed Mr. Koh, the store owner. Everyone connected somehow to Robbie and the crime--witnesses, family, friends, schoolmates, authorities, and the local press -- asks the same question: why? Robbie was such a quiet boy. He was so average. The only thing that seemed to stand out about him at all was his obsession with a superhero named Megaboy, Robbie's own invention. The story, told from multiple points of view, is built from bits and pieces, observations from people who thought they knew Robbie but who, in actuality, never did. They make him up, little by little, just as Robbie has created Megaboy. Their brief statements are accompanied by original graphics that provide additional clues in Robbie's perplexing story. As readers we become witnesses ourselves and, although we are never given any definitive answers -- Robbie himself never speaks about the incident -- we are given plenty to mull over and discuss, so that we can all make up our own Megaboy. (Ages 12-16)
CCBC Choices 1998. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 1998. Used with permission.