"The Magic Sneakers" by Robert J. Evans
If you were given a super power would you use it for good or for selfish reasons? Peter Parker's Uncle Ben once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Would that be your motto? That is just the issue that Jimmy Burton is faced with when he goes to buy new shoes for school and soon discovers his shoes give him the power to fly. Jimmy immediately wants to show off and then thinks twice of it. After all if he showed off then everyone would want to have HIS shoes. So maybe he could just use them a little in sports to be better. But that wouldn't be fair to the other players who practice. As you can see Jimmy is faced with a dilemma.
In this book Robert Evans takes us on a journey on deciding what is good and what is bad. The adventures he takes us on are fun but at the same time give a little lesson on morality. At one point Jimmy does tell his best friend, Billy, and Billy starts telling Jimmy what "WE" could do. So a little lesson on greed jumps in.
One of the neat parts of this book is the turn it takes about halfway through when Jimmy and Billy decide to have some fun with the sneakers. Jimmy is caught on camera flying above the ocean near Santa Monica Pier and soon the Pentagon is involved. Jimmy is whisked away to Washington D.C. where the President tells him how this power could be used for good but we can't let the other nations get it. So Jimmy has a HUGE decision to make, would the U.S. use this power for good or war, and should he reveal his secret. Jimmy "hijacks" a tank and flies it back to California to pick up his parents and his best friend. (Yeah, you read that right "flies a tank") He then returns to the Pentagon and decides to tell the secret, but Jimmy meets a mysterious Major Flynn, who says he can get the shoes back.
Jimmy is guest of honor at the White House where he spends the night in the Lincoln bedroom and meets the great man himself, or at least the "ghost" of Lincoln. He also meets 2 aliens and they then talk about how the Earth is not quite ready for the power in the shoes.
Now at this point the book becomes interesting in that it could be best described as a youth version of "The Celestine Prophecy" with a little of Deepak Chopra mixed in. I will leave this up to you, the reader, to find out the fun in this one.
All in all this book is a fun read and a pretty quick read surprisingly. With all the adventures and in depth discussions of physics and the universe you just can't put it down. I highly recommend this one for anyone with children ages 6 - 16 a little something for all the kids in that range.
Labels: children's books
