Kaboom!: Blast Off

Written by Jay Odjick

Illustrated by KC Oster

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-9836-3 

142 pp.

Ages 8–12

February 2026 

 

Zack seems like a regular kid. He likes riding his bike and imagining himself as a superhero. He is lured by ads for the snack Choco Pops and the energy drink Splurge and is impressed with the fabulously rich like Konstantin Pierce. Compared to his boring parents who sell refrigerators, Pierce looks pretty exciting. But there seems to be another story that the imaginative Zack does not know. While he believes his parents are at a trade show and he's staying with his Auntie Jess, his mom and dad, calling each other Shadowbird and Greywolf, are working for F.U.S.I.O.N. as true superheroes, currently stopping those who steal ancient artifacts. As for Konstantin Pierce, he's more villain than entrepreneurial genius.

From Kaboom!: Blast Off, written by Jay Odjick, illustrated by KC Oster

Pierce is looking to extort world powers by controlling the weather and he's concerned that F.U.S.I.O.N. agents are going to get in the way. He arranges for them to be eliminated. Not surprising that Zack is shocked when flying robots and a masked man come and take his parents and aunt away. Thankfully his parents have a household security system to protect Zack and he, along with a cute robotic dog rejected by Pierce, are whisked to his parents' underground headquarters where he virtually meets Tana a.k.a. Teknik from New Zealand. Tana/Teknik explains that, like his parents and her Māori father, she is an agent of F.U.S.I.O.N., the First Universal Secret Indigenous Operatives Network, which is tasked with working against any threat to Indigenous Peoples, cultures, and ways of life.

From Kaboom!: Blast Off, written by Jay Odjick, illustrated by KC Oster

So, as Zack and his new robot sidekick Rusty poke around his superhero parents' secret den, Pierce is threatening the U.N. even though he realizes that a thumb drive with the activation codes is missing. But, after finding a special Lycra suit fit for a superhero, Zack, who becomes known as Kaboom, works to help get his parents back and thwart Konstantin Pierce and his villainous henchman and drones. 
 

Looks like there's a new superhero in town as Blast Off! is just the first book in the new Kaboom! graphic novel series. Zack a.k.a Kaboom is a little impetuous, a lot funny, and kind of sweet, and he's a character whose adventures middle graders will want to follow. Jay Odjick, who'd previously illustrated Robert Munsch's Bear for Breakfast / Makwa kidji kijebà wìsiniyàn (2019), gives us a story in which a kid becomes a hero. But Jay Odjick also blends Zack's story with Indigenous superheroes from around the world—Māori, Inuit, Nahua, Khalka, and Algonquin appear in Blast Off—and the importance of doing good. Still Kaboom!: Blast Off is not a story that is told to preach or convey messages of how to live. It's about superhero fun with lots of humour, like when Zack starts pushing buttons he shouldn't or when he mishears Tana when she says kinetic and he hears Connecticut. With Zack just being Zack and Jay Odjick getting all the voices just right for all his characters, Kaboom!: Blast Off entertains completely.

From Kaboom!: Blast Off, written by Jay Odjick, illustrated by KC Oster

But, without the artwork of KC Oster, a new illustrator for me, Kaboom!: Blast Off just wouldn't be the hit it is. I like the style of this Ojibwe-Anishinaabe comic artist, who previously did the art for Rabbit Chase (written Elizabeth LaPensée, 2022). Their graphics are not cluttered, focusing on Zack and the other characters, keeping the details for lively interactions like altercations with the bad guys and fight scenes. And by not limiting their palette of colours, KC Oster makes the art exciting and lavish.

 

An Indigenous superhero organization, a kid hero, a robotic dog, and operations to stop the bad guys sounds like the kind of graphic novel that middle-grade readers will latch onto. I think Kaboom! has just made a dynamite arrival.

Ghostlight

Written by Kenneth Oppel

Puffin Canada

978-0-7352-7233-0

400 pp.

Ages 10+

September 2022

With Halloween almost upon us, how about a new middle grade novel about a trio of teens trying to help a ghost from the 1800s fight an evil one and save her father? Want some fantasy? How about some horror? Action-adventure? Ghostlight has it all. (Even a little romance.)

Sixteen-year-old Gabe is working the summer at Toronto Islands giving the island ghost tour while his best friend Yuri, a mechanical whiz, works maintenance for the rides at the amusement park. Part of Gabe's tour is the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse whose original keeper, William Strand, and daughter Rebecca met their unexplained and tragic ends in 1839. After Gabe unintentionally makes a connection with the ghost of Rebecca Strand in the off-limits lamp room of the lighthouse, enabling him to see and hear her, she tells him that she and her father were murdered by the ghost Nicholas Viker who devoured others to make himself more powerful. Rebecca's father, one of his victims, had been part of the Order of Keepers who protected harbours, cities and coastlines from ghosts by using powerful amber lights called ghostlights to strengthen a lamp's beam and zap ghosts.

We stand guard over the night, to protect the living from the wakeful and wicked dead. (pg. 12)

Enlisting the help of Yuri and a new acquaintance, Callie Ferreira, a teen who works at the CN Tower but also writes a ghost blog, Gabe and burgeoning-techie Rebecca follow ghosts and history to locate the ghostlight and thwart the diabolical Nicholas Viker–"His rage was boundless. His dream denied. His envy unvented." (pg. 109)–who wants the amber crystal for his own nefarious use. It's a race across time and space to find that ghostlight, fight evil spirits, ally themselves with those who do good, and reunite Rebecca with her father, while Gabe also comes to terms with the death of his own father after he'd abandoned the family. Whether they can make things right for Rebecca and her father, the other ghosts, the city of Toronto, and themselves is the story of Ghostlight and it's a doozy. 

 

Kenneth Oppel will always give us a grand story, often taking realistic fiction into the realms of fantasy but with such subtlety that the reader will always wonder: Could this really have happened? Whether it's bats or alien invasions, a sasquatch or a live-forever machine, Kenneth Oppel makes us believe. Often, he does this by embedding a strong historical basis for his story, as he does in Ghostlight, taking us to legitimate Toronto locations like the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse, the Grange, the CN Tower and the Fisher Rare Book Library at U of T, and including real persons as characters such as George Brown and William Ward. And Ghostlight makes us believe in the spirits that are still of our world, whether looking for release to a better place or to create havoc for the living. 

 

Whether you read Ghostlight for Halloween or save it for another time, Kenneth Oppel will give you the creepiness of a great ghost story but also remind readers of the pervasiveness of history, good and bad, and the promise of overcoming evil through partnerships. And that's as brilliant as any ghostlight.

From Ghostlight by Kenneth Oppel

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Check out the following post for news of an author event with Kenneth Oppel this weekend.

Made 4 You

Written by Eric Walters

DCB

978-1-77086-661-4

296 pp.

Ages 13+

September 2022

 

Except for the headaches which have started plaguing her–and for which she has had multiple MRIs–seventeen-year-old Becky James's senior year is mapped out as getting good grades, prepping for the SATs, volunteering at a seniors' residence, and partaking in extracurricular activities like school band and social justice club and managing the boys' basketball team.  Then she meets Gene Newman, a previously-homeschooled student from New York state whom she will host and offer assistance.

As smart as Gene is, he needs support to fit in at their Nobleton, Indiana high school. His first-day blue suit and shiny brief case, as well as his formal speech, make him a standout. But he's a fast learner, following Becky's advice with respect to dress and more. Soon he's not just fitting in but he's attracting attention as an exceptional student, saxophone musician and basketball player. As they spend more and more time together, and Gene reveals the research his adoptive parents have been conducting on human intelligence and strategies for learning, the two teens become closer. But it's not smooth sailing for the young couple as there are secrets that could put them both in danger and perhaps keep them separated forever.

When science fiction is written well, it becomes less fantasy and more possibility, and Made 4 You is so plausible that readers will wonder if the story is based in reality. (Of course, that's also the finesse that is Eric Walters's writing.) Research on human intelligence is vast and expanding, as scientists look to how we learn, apply and adapt, so raising a young man like Gene who can learn anything quickly and thoroughly is not surprising. However, the depth of his learning, from math to sports and social interactions, is astounding, especially as it is coupled with empathy and love. Because Eric Walters takes Gene beyond the genius he is and makes him into a teen in love, Gene is a complete, albeit extraordinary, human.  And with dangerous adversaries looking to exploit the science behind Gene's intellectual development, Made 4 You goes beyond a sci fi romance into a thriller and action adventure. It's a story that has it all: sweet moments of falling in love, mysterious scientific research, and chase scenes across land and sky. Moreover, with Eric Walters at the writing helm, not only is it a story made for any middle-grader or teen who reads across genres, Made 4 You is also complex, nuanced and full of heart. (Even the dedication will give readers an "Awww" moment of pause.)