Heck Superhero

Theresa Paltzat is the Smart Search librarian at the Edmonton Public
Library.

Heck is a 13-year old boy who has been forced at a young age to confront
the realities of poverty and his mother’s mental illness. Through his
love of comic books, he has developed a unique perspective on his life.
In Heck’s world, a boy can have a wonderful, caring mother even though
Social Services may consider her unfit.

Heck Superhero opens with a hungry Heck sitting in a shopping mall,
trying to make sense of his situation. He and his mother have been
evicted from their apartment and she has disappeared. When his mother
disappears for days at a time, Heck considers her to be in
“hypertime,” existing on a bridge that spans the reality of her life
as a homeless single mother and a constructed reality where she is free
of responsibilities. Heck believes in good deeds. He thinks that if he
does a good deed, things will get better. If he can find the ultimate
good deed, he will find his mom and they will be able to live together
again. When Heck meets Marion, a troubled homeless boy, he believes that
if he helps Marion, he will have done the ultimate good deed.
Unfortunately, Heck must once again deal with some harsh consequences of
mental illness.

Leavitt has created a truly appealing young protagonist. Heck is a
talented artist, particularly interested in comic book and superhero
art, who lives in a dangerous and unstable world. He has created a
universe for himself that is based on a comic-book world. The story
covers only a few days in this boy’s life, but the reader is drawn
into the comic-book constructions he has made in his life to cope with
its instability. Highly recommended.