Link + Hud: Heroes by a Hair

Link + Hud: Heroes by a Hair

Jarrett Pumphrey

Jerome Pumphrey, Illustrator

Norton, 2023

234 pages

Grades 2-5

Humor/Graphic-Fiction Hybrid

Lincoln and Hudson are two young brothers with BIG imaginations. Their wild imaginings beg to be acted out and their active play often results in chaos--and the firing of yet another babysitter. Podiatrist dad is trying to launch a line of hair products and invites a group of ladies from the community over to hear his sales pitch. Naturally the boy's hijinks spectacularly ruin the evening. One success is the advent of a new babysitter: Ms. Joyce. She is no-nonsense and gets the guys helping out with housework and watching her "stories". She needs to go so that they can have their freedom back, but how to get rid of her? An inspired idea involves a ceiling fan, balloons filled with water and toilet paper, and a video camera. Finally, Link and Hud win! The old lady is gone and one of the distracted teenagers is back. They got what they wanted, but why do they feel so terrible?

Award winning team and real-life brothers turn their attentions from picture books to a graphic novel hybrid. The fast moving text is told in a traditional word format about half of the time. The rest of the story is conveyed in black and white cartoon-like illustrations. The imaginary adventures of the boys are in a paneled format, much like a comic book and then flash to a full page illustration once they are pulled out of the fantasy. The story is truly funny with sometimes brilliant dialog, generally coming from Ms. Joyce. Reluctant readers are the obvious audience, yet any new chapter book reader will gobble-up this kid-friendly story. The print is nice and big and the chapters are short, insuring that the story reads quickly and will not overwhelm struggling readers. The ending is sewn up nicely, yet I would not be surprised to see a few more installments in this potential series starter. This book has been labeled as "semi-autobiographical" and based on the exploits of our author and illustrator growing up. This fact adds another layer to the shenanigans--and sympathy for the Pumphrey's real-life parents!