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Gr 10 Up-After losing his mother to cancer, 10-year-old Lester moves in with his Uncle Ken, a gruff and solitary bachelor who owns a small farm in rural Ontario. Ken tries his best to reach out to his nephew but can't relate to this boy who wears a superhero cape and prefers reading comics to watching hockey on television. Lester spends most of his time by himself until he makes a friend with the least likely of characters: Jimmy, a disgraced pro hockey player who now runs the convenience store at the local gas station. Jimmy enters Lester's imaginary world by helping him build a fort to stave off an alien invasion and encouraging him to write and draw his own comic book. The bond that grows between the two helps both Lester and Jimmy move beyond the tragedies life gave them. Lemire's writing nails that complicated mixture of anger and sadness that comes with losing a loved one. His black-and-white illustrations work equally well, using rough and chunky lines to powerfully re-create the solitary nature of farm life and Lester's vivid imagination. Teens will love the humor in Lester's odd imagination and will be touched by the heart of a book that delivers a compelling look at tragedy and how to move on after it strikes.-Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.