This splendid comedy-drama about a 13-year-old boy who finds himself on the streets when his incapable mother abandons reality, will appeal to both reluctant and serious readers. Hector, an extremely talented artist, covers up his chaotic home life by fantasizing about being a hero, a doer of Good Deeds. He believes that if he is good, all will be well. But he can’t tell the police, his teachers, or his best friend that he and his mother have been evicted. He wanders the mall and the streets practicing his faith in good deeds, until he meets a boy who lives completely in a fantasy. Leavitt’s superb writing displays her own soaring imagination, with original, apt, quirky metaphors that keep her narrative zooming along. The lightness of her language yet carries a moving story of a spunky kid who learns he has to live in the real world. (Fiction. 12-14)
