Book description
From award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt, a warm and witty novel in the tradition of The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh grader has to figure out how to fulfill an assignment to perform the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life-and makes discoveries about friendship, community, and himself…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Labors of Hercules Beal as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This is a story about a seventh-grader named Hercules navigating trauma and grief, that are aptly rendered as struggles through twelve, um, Herculean labors.
Schmidt is a master storyteller, and Hercules is another one of his endearing twelve-year-olds (“Oh boy, oh boy”) whose drole observations in a supportive but eccentric Cape Cod community you’d like to live in will make you laugh out loud.
Hercules’ journey of well-earned healing and growth after a staggering loss—with wonderful supporting characters, including a drill sergeant of a teacher, brother Achilles’ vampire girlfriend, an awesome support dog, and loyal sidekicks—should be savored and shared…
If you love The Labors of Hercules Beal...
Bubble Sheet Blues
“It’s going to be a good year for readers if William Durbin’s funny and timely new novel is an example of what’s to come.” Book Editor, St. Paul Pioneer Press
Luke Collins, an eighth grader who’s previously been a slacker in school, becomes engaged when an English assignment leads him…
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