THE UNFORGETTABLE LOGAN FOSTER

A 12-year-old orphan with an eidetic memory and an autism spectrum diagnosis finds the most unusual foster parents.

Logan’s been told he’s a difficult kid many times since he was found abandoned in an airport wearing a T-shirt reading “World’s Best Big Brother.” Between his six failed foster placements, Logan seeks out the younger sibling he’s sure exists. He doesn’t make friends, as he’s pedantic, talkative, sometimes cruel, and prone to reciting facts, so he has no hopes for this seventh placement attempt with prospective parents Gil and Margie. Their get-together is disrupted by an earthquake and lava flow; Logan uses his eidetic memory to escape down a zip line, but he’s surprised when Gil and Margie survive. As foster parents, they’re loving but extremely weird, and it’s not shocking when they turn out to be superheroes. Along with his next-door neighbor Elena, Logan gets pulled into fun, silly, superheroic chaos in a world where everyone in on the secret is a genre stereotype. Though the perspective of the novel is Logan’s own, he comes across like a checklist of autism tropes rather than a well-rounded personality. He has multiple savant-level skills, and, though adept at reading social cues, he continually explains that he’s terrible at it. Everyone except for Elena (who is Chicana and Black) appears to be White by default.

Gleeful action that rarely lets its protagonist be a kid instead of a savant hero.