Dan Unmasked

May 1, 2020
Comics and baseball are all Dan needs--before the accident. Things couldn't really be going better for 13-year-old Dan. The Mira Giants have just qualified for the Western New York Double Elimination Tournament, and a new Captain Nexus comic is about to come out. Dan's father is too busy for him these days, but it's OK, because Dan shares comics and baseball and everything great with his best friend, Nate, the Giants' amazing pitcher. So Dan's world seems shattered when Nate is hit with a baseball during practice. Now Nate's in a coma, and Dan's falling apart. Maybe if he and Nate's kid brother make a Captain Nexus fan-fiction comic, that will be the talisman that wakes Nate up? While Nate spirals through rage, fear, and magical thinking, he tries to draw lessons from his beloved comics. But if comics can't save Nate, Dan's got nothing left--except encouraging the now-underdog Giants through a series of inspiring speeches and cinematic epiphanies. Long passages describing the Captain Nexus comics are lovingly detailed, showing a passion for the art of the superhero comic, but these moments drag the action to a crawl; in a visual medium, the dynamism depicted would complement the baseball tropes, but in prose, they detract. Dan and most characters appear to be white, though it's left unclear. Though uneven, stirringly hits every despairing low and thrilling high of a sports movie. (Fiction. 10-12)

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Narrator Josh Hurley establishes a youthful voice for Dan, who will do anything to help his best friend, Nate, recover from a tragic accident that lands him in the hospital in a medically induced coma. Hurley navigates Dan's tumultuous emotions as he goes from feeling helpless to optimistic. To keep busy and do what he can, Dan and his friends work to create a fan-fiction story based on Dan and Nate's favorite comic book. They hope that reading to Nate will help him recover. Listeners will immediately be drawn to the teens as they learn to cope with some of life's greatest challenges. M.D. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine