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    How to Be a Hero
    Unavailable
    How to Be a Hero
    Unavailable
    How to Be a Hero
    Ebook29 pages5 minutes

    How to Be a Hero

    By Florence Parry Heide and Chuck Groenink

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Once upon a time, there was a nice boy and his name was Gideon. He lived in a nice house, and he had nice parents and lots of toys. But Gideon wasn't satisfied. He wanted to be a hero. You know, a hero, with his name on the front page of the newspaper. That sort of thing. So how does anyone get to be a hero, anyway? Heroes have to be strong. Heroes have to be brave. Heroes have to be clever. Don't they? With wry humor, Florence Parry Heide and Chuck Groenink explore how we choose our idols in a witty story that leaves it to readers to decide the real nature of heroism.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9781452139456
    Unavailable
    How to Be a Hero
    Author

    Florence Parry Heide

    Florence Parry Heide worked in advertising and public relations, but is best known for her many award-winning and best-selling books for children, including The Spotlight Club series and Some Things Are Scary. Florence Parry Heide passed away in 2011.

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    Reviews for How to Be a Hero

    3.5/5

    11 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I was really disappointed by this book. I wasn't expecting to have to explain irony to my five year old. Here's a beautiful book son, that's full of exactly the opposite message I want you to hear. It would be better as a satirical book for adults.
    • 4/5
      If you just read the story, the boy seems to have been the perfect hero! But study the pictures and the truth reveals itself! HAHAHAHA!
    • 4/5
      Gideon had a very nice life - nice parents, a nice home, nice toys - but he wanted something more. He wanted to be a hero. Unfortunately, all of the fairy-tales he had read - stories like Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella - had heroes who simply showed up at the right time and place, without doing anything particularly remarkable. So what made a hero, and how could he become one...?I'm bemused to note that some online reviewers of How To Be a Hero have deplored its message, arguing that it reinforces masculine and white privilege, when I think one of the central ideas in the text is how ill-served young boys are by many traditional tales. Plenty of people complain about stories like Cinderella and the messages they send to young girls - the passivity of the heroine, the idea of finding one's prince being the ultimate end-goal, etc. - without ever thinking about the poor messages they send young boys. As Gideon reflects about what it takes to be a hero, the qualities he'd like to emulate - strength, bravery, cleverness - don't seem to be required, leaving him at something of a loss. His determination to be mindful is admirable, but humorously undercut by his obliviousness in the final scenes, in which he doesn't notice a baby in need of saving. Here perhaps, in the artwork, we can see where the above mentioned critiques might have some justification, although I think the critics may have missed the fact that the artist is deliberately creating a satirical counter-narrative to the text in his illustrations, and that the artwork itself may be a commentary on the issues they have raised. I'd be curious to know illustrator Chuck Groenink's thought process, in expanding upon author Florence Parry Heide's text. I'd also be interested in Heide's reaction, although that won't be forthcoming, since this one was published posthumously.Leaving aside questions of messages, implicit or otherwise, How To Be a Hero struck me as a quirky and amusing book, although I'm not sure the younger picture-book set will be able to appreciate some of the irony it employs.