Customer Reviews

Making Up Megaboy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A short book that will take YA readers less than an hour to read but will give them food for thought for days to come. I've used it with an 8th. grade class with very positive results. The students saw the shallowness of the young girl as well as the prejudices against certain ethnic groups and young people. The book is realistic in that it doesn't answer the question of "why?" This is a terrific book to use to stimulate discussion of several topics: timeliness/reality, graphics, characterization, style of writing.

If there's one thing that children (and childlike adults) hate, it's books with inconclusive endings. If you're reading a story and you meet a sympathetic character who commits an atrocious crime, you undoubtedly want to know why that crime was committed. The last thing you're going to want is to reach the end of the story and find yourself staring at the final page without any more idea why such-n-such happened as you did when you first began. It's a remarkably gutsy move on the part of an author to create a book like, "Making Up Megaboy". Admittedly, author Virginia Walters and illustrator Katrina Roeckelein have written a book that was a better idea in theory than it winded up being in practice. Still, they've done their best and the story certainly catches the eye and will make for plenty of lively discussions of what the true tale really is.

No one knows why Robbie Jones shot the old Korean man in the liquor store. Robbie was a thirteen-year-old kid with few friends and an active fantasy life. He and his best friend Ruben would draw comic strips of a character named "Megaboy". Robbie had a crush on a girl named Tara in school, but his connection to Mr. Koh (the deceased) was sketchy at best. Now however he's a thirteen-year-old with murder on his head and evidence all around him. Why he did it, no one knows. But everyone has an idea. And everyone's talking.

I guess the real danger of this book is that it sort of gives the impression that if a kid is a loner who keeps to his or her own self and likes art, they're probably a danger. The book could even be interpreted to mean something along the lines of those-who-do-not-conform-to-society-will-ultimately-destroy-it. Sure Robbie seems like a nice kid, but since we never know why exactly he killed Mr. Koh he's given a bit of distance from the reader. There's also the fact that the story's essentially unbelievable. I mean, people just don't go about killing other people for no good reason. It's not a day-to-day reaction. Robbie's crime is so frustrating to readers partly because it's so senseless. And not senseless in the sense that it's a waste of a young life. Senseless because from what we know of Robbie (and from the scant 64 some pages here, that ain't much) he's not the type that would do this crime. Also, if a thirteen-year-old kills someone, goes to jail, and refuses to talk about it and seems to be in shock.... Well what better basis for an insanity plea could you want?

I'm talking about all the problems with the book, but there are good things in it as well. The original format taking all sides and showing the crime after the fact is good. Ditto the characters you get to know. Placing much of her skill in throwaway lines, Walter enables characters like Tara (the girl Robbie had a crush on) to deliver nasty cutting thoughts on things like selling a picture Robbie once gave her for a lot of money now that he's infamous.

In the end, however, "Making Up Megaboy" doesn't know what it wants to be. Obviously this book is trying, and not quite succeeding, to be akin to Walter Dean Myers', "Monster". Of the two, "Monster" is a far stronger book. "Megaboy" is just too short to make up for its one-of-a-kind ending. It's certainly possible to write a book in which a crime remains a mystery up and until the end. But to do so the author needs to immerse the reader fully in that criminal's head. We never see anything that Robbie's actually thinking, with the possible exception of a "Megaboy" script thrown in at the end of the tale. We don't know how Robbie felt about his parents or his friends or his school. Just a single glimpse into his head would've salvaged a promising idea. Walter fails in this respect. I still think that "Making Up Megaboy" has its uses in the classroom. Just don't expect it to be a great big hit outside of required reading circles.

With news this morning of the conviction of yet another teenaged murderer, I am sadly reminded, once again, just how timely and poignant Virginia Walter's Making Up Megaboy is. Certainly this is a dark book; but these are dark times when kids feel the need to act out their anger and insecurities by killing others. What this book tells us, through its multiple points of view, is that we are all responsible for helping today's youth reach their maximum potential. As a librarian who has worked with young adults for many years and as the aunt of four adolescents, I feel Making Up Megaboy should be read and discussed by all pre-teens and their parents.

I ,too, felt cheated by this book. I looked everywhere for it: the libraries, bookstores,and the university because, by the descriptions given from reputed literary magazines, I felt it would be good to have in my classroom library. It is a pointless book that takes the reader nowhere. Nothing is explored, nothing is given anything more than a cursory glance at a topic which mertis so much more. This reader was saddened by the hype and the time spent to both find it and read it (reading only took about 15 minutes!) Not worth the paper printed on!

I think the book was quite good but I was told it was one of the best books I'd ever read but I didn't think it was that good. The book "Making Up Magaboy" is about a 13 year old boy who takes his fathers gun and goes to the local liquor store. He opens fire on a Korean man and kills him. He was a very good student and he is also a good kid. He doesn't have many friends, though. Since events like Columbine, books like this are much more realistic and believable. I would recommend this book to people who like books that are for the mind not the heart.

Virginia Walter and Katrina Roekelein have put a lot of thought into this small, tragic tale. It doesn't answer the question we all have --Why?-- but it's got more depth and more breadth than all the news stories put together. I had a couple of small disagreements with the graphics, where I thought the designer sacrificed reality and readability for design. But the people are marvelous: the pricipal with the one-track mind, the shallow material girl, and the good friend of whom Robbie's parents didn't approve. And Robbie, who probably has no more idea than anyone else why he destroyed all those lives.

It would be irresponsible to give this this appalling TV-Info-News-Style 62-page book to children. It is all groovy-graphics. It sensationalizes the puzzle of a child's random act of violence. It is very topical and timely to be sure. But it just adds to the feeding frenzy of fascination with such weird disturbing crimes. The random murder, is the dominant "character" in this story. However, there is actually no character development in the book, which is a major flaw. The murder poses an existential question. It is not revealed, explained, explored or understood. The people are represented as sound-bites, reflecting shallow personalities and no wisdom or insight. The murderer, a very scared, disturbed (if creative) boy, is not a character at all; just someone to feel pity for and fearful of. There is no exploration of who this boy is and what caused his behavior. This book doesn't raise questions, it reports a crime. It offers pieces of a puzzle, as ! a news report does. But a news report confines itself to facts and doesn't pretend otherwise. A book for young readers should offer much, much more. I felt cheated and ripped off after reading this. Comparisons to SCORPIONS and ADAM'S WAR are not appropriate. Those books are about gang violence and the people and communities affected. This is not. The only thing this book has is common with the other two is a gun.

In "Making Up Megaboy", 13 year old Robbie Jones shoots and kills an elderly Korean grocery store owner with his father's handgun. This is a disturbing book: bleak in tone, dispassionate in its objective dissection of a tragedy (made all the more unsettling due to the recent events in Jonesboro, Arkansas) and with an ambiguous ending that will leave children unsatisfied and adults bewildered. This is a very short book (62 pages) filled with eye-popping graphics on every page in addition to a variety of interesting styles of text. Which lead one to question: just who was this book written for? Younger readers will be attracted to the easy text and the compelling design of the book, but the content is so heavy and haunting - this book demands to be discussed at length with a child's parent, teacher or caregiver. Older, more accomplished readers will finish it off in ten minutes and move on. Since the text is a series of monologues, I wish there had been a greater difference in tone and characterization between the separate narrators, as in Paul Fleischman's "Seedfolks", which employs the same technique. Whatever its weaknesses, "Making Up Megaboy" is sure to cause debate and controversy.

I think this book is great as a theatre activity. You take the characters in the book and give each one to a different student. Then have the kids read the book as a whole with each person acting out their character. I really like the story and the book.

This book was trash. It had no purpose, plot, or ending. It was just a way for 2 crazy poeple to get their bizarre doodles onto paper. Enough said, words shouldn't be wasted on this book.