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The Boy Who Swallows Flies
Michael F. Stewart
Publication date: February 15th 2018
Genres: Middle-Grade, Mystery, Superhero
Winner of the Claymore Award!
Warning – Rated Kids-Only for Bug Violence
Jarrod can view the memories of any bug. He just has to eat it. It’s not the tastiest of superpowers and, let’s face it, fly memories aren’t all unicorns and rainbows. Eating insects also doesn’t net him many friends, and Bug-boy is an unavoidable nickname. But Jarrod’s ready to prove that he and his bugs are worth more than ridicule.
When he swallows a fly while biking, he’s in for a shock. The bug saw a room stacked full of sick dogs and puppies in crates. It’s a puppy mill, and Jarrod needs to save the animals. But the flight range of the common housefly is five miles. Even if the police believed him, with no evidence, they can’t help. It’s up to Jarrod.
Trained cockroaches survey neighborhood basements. A fly taped to a window makes an excellent sentry. Every beetle, mosquito, caterpillar—don’t eat the fuzzy yellow ones—spider and centipede is his edible sidekick.
Will Jarrod save the dogs? Or is it all too much to swallow?
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My Review
I had a feeling this would be a hoot to read and the author didn’t let me down.
Jarrod has a condition where he faints for no reason. That’s why he wears a helmet to protect his head. It paints a huge target on him at school and the bullies don’t miss a chance to pick on the Bug Boy. He’s been called weird and dumb often enough he’s come to believe it. But his best friend tells him he just hadn’t tapped into his potential yet. When he accidentally swallows a bug and can see it’s memories, he thinks he just might have found it.
No. Just no. There’s no way I could eat a bug on purpose. Jarrod gets creative, I’ll give him that. And he keeps a bucket handy in case what goes down comes back up. And letting the bugs out to crawl all over him in his bed. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.
Jerrod’s new found talent sets him on a course of discovery. There’s some moral issues involved and he’s tempted by others. He may believe he’s not the smartest of kids, but I sure liked how he worked things out.
An unlikely hero with some unusual sidekicks. It’s creepy crawly fun.
5 Stars
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Author Michael F. Stewart
Michael F. Stewart is winner of both the 2015 Claymore Award and the 2014 inaugural Creation of Stories Award for best YA novel at the Toronto International Book Fair.
He likes to combine storytelling with technology and pioneered interactive storytelling with Scholastic Canada, Australia, and New Zealand’s, anti-cyberbullying program Bully For You. In addition to his award winning Assured Destruction series, he has authored four graphic novels with Oxford University Press Canada’s Boldprint series. Publications of nonfiction titles on Corruption and Children’s Rights are published by Scholastic and early readers are out with Pearson Education.For adults, Michael has written THE SAND DRAGON a horror about a revenant prehistoric vampire set in the tar sands, HURAKAN a Mayan themed thriller which pits the Maya against the MS-13 with a New York family stuck in the middle, 24 BONES an urban fantasy which draws from Egyptian myth, and THE TERMINALS–a covert government unit which solves crimes in this realm by investigating them in the next.
Herder of four daughters, Michael lives to write in Ottawa where he was the Ottawa Public Library’s first Writer in Residence. To learn more about Michael and his next projects visit his website at www.michaelfstewart.com or connect via Twitter @MichaelFStewart.
Michael is represented by Talcott Notch.
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