10. Humor: The Adventures of Blue Avenger

Citation:

Howe, Norma. The Adventures of Blue Avenger. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1999. Book.

 

Annotation:

David changes his name to Blue Avenger.  This name change gives him the courage to be brave and help people.  During his exploits David explores the possibility of pre-determinism.

Justification for Nomination:

This book was flowing with humor from when David changed his name to the quirky discussions of pre-determinism.  Another attempt at humor is when the book would talk about the chain of events that led up to something happening in the book.  Even the very first part of the book where David discusses if his Dad was killed by an ice cream cone or a spider on windshield was humorous.

The language in the book reflected how a sixteen year old would talk, especially in the arguments with his ten year old brother.  Curse words are something that the main character morally objected to so when someone swore in the book symbols were used instead of the word.  Colorful vocabulary words like monkeyshines really added to the humor of the story.

Omniscient is the style that was used in this book.  It was Omniscient style because not only did the narrator know what the characters were thinking, but also events that were distantly outside of any knowledge of characters was also know by the narrator.  The narrator’s point of view really helps add to the humor.

David changes as a character right in the beginning with the name change.  As Blue he frequently thinks that he is doing something David would have been unable to do.  After his initial change of personalities Blue remains a pretty steady character.  He is always looking for some good to do for others and is working to meet his ultimate goals as a hero. 

The dialogue in the book seems to flow pretty naturally complete with interruptions.  The speaker of the dialogue is marked with tags of he said, she said.  Things beside dialogue that were added in this particular story are emails and news paper articles. 

This book was 230 pages, but because of the large print it was a really fast read.  That caused the books plot to move really fast.  Blue and the other characters were so quirky the plot stayed very exciting.  It was a treat to keep reading to see what zany thing was going to happen next. 

Genre:

Humor