As far as I can tell, there are not really a whole lot of middle grade books that address the mental health of boys, period, so when I saw this title, about a Black boy dealing with anxiety, I tracked it down right away.
This was another book I sought out as I worked on my article for School Library Journal on mental health rep in middle grade books (look for that March 2022!). Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all. Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too-as soon as he figures out how. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives.Īll this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle.
But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too.
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