Maxwell Kane, the guileless, oversized hero of Freak the Mighty (rev. 1/94), returns in this sequel, a little smarter and no less courageous than when we first met him. Now fourteen, Max comes to the rescue of a younger girl, Worm (short for Bookworm), who is in imminent danger of being abused by her creepy stepfather. Impulsively, Max kidnaps her, and the two set out to find her real father on a journey that leads them across the country to Chivalry, Montana. Philbrick uses Arthurian imagery, much as he did in the earlier novel, to underscore the theme. "It's all about fighting for honor and protecting the innocent and never giving up even if the whole world is against you," Worm says, describing a book she's reading about the knights of the round table. The world does seem to bear them a grudge: they are attacked by wild dogs and betrayed by a couple of con artists during their travels. But they find friends, too, who offer them food and shelter and usher them to their final destination. The characters and plot sometimes threaten to stretch the reader's sense of reality to its limits. Worm's villainous stepfather-"a street crazy with a mean streak"-for example, dresses in black, is called the Undertaker, and drives a rusty old hearse. And except for the two protagonists, the characters seem more colorful than fully fleshed out. But the two who matter the most grab your attention and engage your heart. A poignant figure, Worm is less outlandish than Max, and her surprising revelations at the end about her father have a logical consistency to them. When it's all over and Max is vindicated, his insistence that the "unvanquished truth" is that he will never be normal holds unexpected layers of meaning.
The powerful sequel to the award-winning Freak the Mighty.
Fourteen-year-old Max is back and he finds himself defending a solitary girl nicknamed "Worm" against a cruel man known as the Undertaker. Against all odds, the teens embark on a perilous journey in search of Worm's father, and must face something more frightening than death itself.
Written in a haunting yet uplifting first-person voice, Publishers Weekly calls Max the Mighty "a rip-roaring, heartwarming escapade."
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Fourteen-year-old Max is back and he finds himself defending a solitary girl nicknamed "Worm" against a cruel man known as the Undertaker. Against all odds, the teens embark on a perilous journey in search of Worm's father, and must face something more frightening than death itself.
Written in a haunting yet uplifting first-person voice, Publishers Weekly calls Max the Mighty "a rip-roaring, heartwarming escapade."
Max the Mighty
The powerful sequel to the award-winning Freak the Mighty.
Fourteen-year-old Max is back and he finds himself defending a solitary girl nicknamed "Worm" against a cruel man known as the Undertaker. Against all odds, the teens embark on a perilous journey in search of Worm's father, and must face something more frightening than death itself.
Written in a haunting yet uplifting first-person voice, Publishers Weekly calls Max the Mighty "a rip-roaring, heartwarming escapade."
Fourteen-year-old Max is back and he finds himself defending a solitary girl nicknamed "Worm" against a cruel man known as the Undertaker. Against all odds, the teens embark on a perilous journey in search of Worm's father, and must face something more frightening than death itself.
Written in a haunting yet uplifting first-person voice, Publishers Weekly calls Max the Mighty "a rip-roaring, heartwarming escapade."
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940177680088 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 08/18/2020 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Age Range: | 8 - 11 Years |
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