The Awesome Adventures of Pickle Boy is a rousing action adventure plucked straight out of the hyper-fueled fantasy world of middle school boys.
Danny Green is an average eleven-year-old boy living with his average family in New York City when, quite by accident, he discovers a hidden cache of pickle juice in his basement and drinks it. Danny is immediately transformed into an action hero with supernatural abilities and a desire to right the wrongs he sees in the world. But Danny is still just a kid and he’s up against some serious villains. The Mafia, street gangs and Al-Qaeda terrorists are just a few of the bad guys Danny faces as he tries to navigate the very real perils of a dangerous world.
Pickle Boy is not an overtly Jewish book—aside from the character’s implied ethnicity, there is no actual Jewish content—but it is an old-fashioned adventure, the kind we don’t often see in the secular market. The characters are pre-teen boys who are not grappling with any of the dating and relationship issues that are so prevalent in today’s young adult literature. In this sense, the book is a kosher alternative for tweens. There is, however, quite a bit of violence—knifings, shootings and nuclear bombs, to name just a few—and parents will need to judge whether this would be frightening or exhilarating for their own children.
With the book market for pre-teens flooded with “relationship” books, including many offerings that normalize same-sex relationships among teenagers, finding a book that is primarily plot-driven can be a real relief for parents struggling to find suitable literature.
As an aside, I wish there were some more “showing” and a little less “telling” in this very imaginative book. We could stand to learn more about Danny from his actions rather than by descriptive narrative. Still, Pickle Boy is a fun and exciting read and the cliffhanger will certainly leave kids clamoring for more.
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