The Trouble with Heroes by Kate Messner (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025) somehow seamlessly ties trauma from 9/11 with the pandemic of COVID-19, all while supporting a mischief-making boy as he finds new meaning in his life. For Finn, losing his firefighter dad in New York City during the early months of COVID-19 (two years before) brought the difficulties of 9/11 and the concept of “heroism” to the forefront of his life, ironically giving him reason to act-out in the small rural town where he and his mother had moved at the beginning of the pandemic.
The theme of the book is defining heroism, even as Finn faces new challenges. As punishment for defacing a gravestone, Finn must hike all 46 of the Adirondack peaks before the end of summer. He also needs to finish a school poetry project. As for heroism, Finn resents the term because his father has been dubbed a hero since 9/11. Now, as a seventh grader, Finn still struggles with his memories of his father’s past alcoholism and frequent absence from home fulfilling his emergency firefighting duties. How could his father have been a hero to everyone except himself?
I really loved the coming-of-age realizations in in the book. The concept of providing a legal reparation via climbing mountains is a pretty ridiculous one, but it works amazingly well in Messner’s novel. The poetry given in this free verse novel is purported to be Finn’s contribution to his teacher for the overdue “poetry project” (although he admits to her that he “didn’t include them all” in his submission to her). Messner’s novel also includes letters, text messages, and photos, which all combine into a summer scrapbook of learning and growing for Finn. Climbing the peaks gives him a new-found confidence in his own abilities, his own perspective on the world, and a new appreciation for his father.
I really appreciated Finn’s story, and the poems that Messner has written are worthy of rereading. In fact, just writing about this book makes me want to revisit. Most particularly, I want to go back and reread the (“Finn’s”) first poem about heroes and his final poem. Messner has captured the essence of her sweet middle grade novel with simple poems that speak to the heart. Character development, gorgeous literary expression, and memorable non-didactic messages to the reader make Messner’s a award-worthy title.
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