READER RESPONSE
HESARA FEB, 1, 2011
Last month I read “Mascot to the Rescue” by Peter David. I have read 230 out of 230 pages. The genre for Mascot to the Rescue is fantasy. Peter David has written two recent novels including “TIGERHEART: the tale of the anyplace” and “DARKNESS OF THE LIGHT” and is also known for The Incredible Hulk, Spider Man and the Fallen Angel.
This book is absolutely phenomenal and since Peter Davis has written so many comics, I thought this text might be interesting. The main characters in this text include the protagonist, a 6th grader named Josh Miller (comic book identity – Mascot) and Kelsey Markus (aka Large Lass) who also takes up a huge role in this book. Doris (Josh’s mom) and Zack Miller (Kelsey’s dad) can also be seen throughout the book. This piece of text is recognized as fantasy because it includes unrealistic material such as ninjas and superheroes. The main setting of this book is in the USA, but taking a deeper look into it, I would say that the main settings are in Northchester, New York city, and at the police station. In this text, I find that it takes place in the near future when ninjas roam the city instead of police officers, although in the book it is not stated. The conflict of this story is that Mascot was voted off to die by readers, in the next issue of Captain Major and Josh has to do something about it before he too is forced to die.
RETELL:
Basically, this extraordinary story is about Josh Miller, who reads the comic “Captain Major” and happens to believe that everything that happens to “Mascot”, the main character in the story, happens to him. At Demarest Elementary School, a chubby girl who often gets teased a lot arrives at the school by the name of Kelsey Markus. One day when Kelsey was being teased, Mascot (Josh) came to the rescue and helped out Kelsey and from that day forth Kelsey and Josh were best of friends. Kelsey soon came to realize Josh’s problem about the connection between him and the comic. Then there was an online survey where readers have voted off for mascot to die in the next issue. Now, Josh and Kelsey set off on an adventure to find Stan Kirby, the creator of the Captain Major series, and save Mascot and Josh himself before he ceases to exist. Throughout his journey to Stan Kirby’s house, Large Lass and Mascot battle many villains including police officers, kids playing paintball and wild, vicious dogs that appear as obstacles for Mascot and Large Lass making it even more difficult to get to their destination. At the end, Stan Kirby changed the result of the comic so that Mascot doesn’t fall to his death and Josh realized that all those previous connections were just coincidences and that there’s no connection between Josh and Mascot.
RELATE:
In the past couple of years, I have actually gotten to read Peter David’s very recent novels which include “Tigerheart: A Tale of the Anyplace” and “Darkness of the Light”. At first, when I got to read “Darkness of the Light”, I got bored of it and realized that “Tigerheart” was an even more attention grabbing and a hard-to-put-down book. Even so, as compared to other texts by this author, I think “Mascot to the Rescue” was actually better and more of an adventurous story than the other two. This text made me think about an issue that is unusual but even so, a dangerous situation that some people put themselves in often leading to death. People have gotten obsessed with famous superheroes in comic books. This situation is very similar to Josh’s case where he is pretending to be Mascot. In the past couple of years, people have tried jumping off tall skyscrapers, climbing up skyscrapers and even flying off tall buildings hoping to succeed or jump and survive. People with this type of situation should realize that super heroes are for entertainment and their moves used in comic books shouldn’t be used in real life. If I were Josh, I would start to realize that Kelsey likes Josh for who he is and not when he’s Mascot. Throughout the story, Kelsey tries to get close to Josh as possible and even tries to tell him that she likes her but Josh doesn’t get it and acts confused when Kelsey tries to explain. So if I were Josh, I would change how he reacts to Kelsey when she tries to tell him that she likes him.
REFLECT:
In this text I actually admire Paul Tinker, the man who guided Josh and Kelsey through their journey to Stan Kirby because he is an innocent and very kind hearted worker at Wonder Comics, the world’s greatest comic book publisher. When Josh and Kelsey came along, he offered to guide them to their destination. Even though Paul isn’t smart and not very good at handling tense situations, he is a person that you wouldn’t find usually find on this planet. If I could speak to the author, the only request I would have for him is for a sequel to “Mascot to the Rescue”. In my opinion, I believe that Peter David left all his readers in a cliff-hanger because the ending to the book was basically like a question that Mascot asks himself about whether Large Lass having a crush on him is a situation he should avoid or not and that maybe it’s a trap. At the end of the book, it says that Captain Major has been Mascot’s dad all along but the Captain just didn’t tell him. Since Josh’s dad disappeared, something that would have made the text more interesting is if Josh too found his dad or maybe he finds out that his dad has been following him throughout the whole journey and that at the end of the text, they get back together and back to their normal lives. Throughout this thrilling novel, I noticed that the author alternates between Mascot’s and Josh’s point of view of the story. This is usually hard to find since it alternates between an imaginary mind of the main character and the main character himself (Josh and Mascot). I predict that in the sequel to this book, Mascot is going to find his dad and then Mascot and his dad go on more adventures together where they battle out villains. Also Josh probably sees to the relationship between him and Kelsey and figures out a solution for it. All and all I’m really looking forward to a sequel to this great book and hoping it comes out in the next couple of years!
