The Unforgettable Logan Foster

November 1, 2021
A 12-year-old orphan with an eidetic memory and an autism spectrum diagnosis finds the most unusual foster parents. Logan's been told he's a difficult kid many times since he was found abandoned in an airport wearing a T-shirt reading "World's Best Big Brother." Between his six failed foster placements, Logan seeks out the younger sibling he's sure exists. He doesn't make friends, as he's pedantic, talkative, sometimes cruel, and prone to reciting facts, so he has no hopes for this seventh placement attempt with prospective parents Gil and Margie. Their get-together is disrupted by an earthquake and lava flow; Logan uses his eidetic memory to escape down a zip line, but he's surprised when Gil and Margie survive. As foster parents, they're loving but extremely weird, and it's not shocking when they turn out to be superheroes. Along with his next-door neighbor Elena, Logan gets pulled into fun, silly, superheroic chaos in a world where everyone in on the secret is a genre stereotype. Though the perspective of the novel is Logan's own, he comes across like a checklist of autism tropes rather than a well-rounded personality. He has multiple savant-level skills, and, though adept at reading social cues, he continually explains that he's terrible at it. Everyone except for Elena (who is Chicana and Black) appears to be White by default. Gleeful action that rarely lets its protagonist be a kid instead of a savant hero. (Adventure. 9-12)

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November 1, 2021
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* Logan, a 12-year-old foundling with an eidetic memory and diagnosed autism, thinks that there is something decidedly odd about his latest set of prospective foster parents. His suspicions are confirmed when an actual supervillain with earthquake powers suddenly attacks, forcing them to reveal their true identities as superheroes Ultra-Quantum and Quicksilver Siren. Alas, their quixotic plan to adopt a child (they can't make one, since he isn't actually a material being and she's a space alien) and live as an ordinary family is put on hold when elusive Necros, a supervillain who can kill with a touch, launches a nefarious scheme to free the secret, and heretofore tightly regulated, community of supers from all bureaucratic restraints. Over the strenuous objections of his new caregivers, Logan not only refuses to stay safely out of the conflict but takes an active role in settling it. Fortunately, he turns out to be as resourceful as he is stubborn and has a staunch ally in Elena, an unusually tall and strong neighbor who, unlike his teachers and a clutch of local bullies, takes Logan's extreme frankness and tendency to overshare in stride. Peters folds laughs and action aplenty into a winning series opener that features both a ka-pow! premise and a particularly memorable addition to the recent uptick of neurodivergent narrators. "That," to quote Logan's mantra, "is a fact." Final illustrations not seen.

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January 28, 2022

Gr 3-7-What starts as a story about a kid in the foster care system trying to find a family morphs into an action-packed superhero adventure. The book is written as a letter from Logan to his unknown younger brother, from whom he was separated when the children were abandoned at an airport. Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and developmental coordination disorder, Logan always has lots of questions. He also has an eidetic memory, so he remembers everything he has seen, read, or heard. While this can make him socially awkward, it also makes him extremely special. His meeting with Gil and Maggie, the latest in the line of foster parents, is interrupted by a weird, localized earthquake, and things keep getting stranger from there. Logan soon puts together the pieces that his foster parents, while well intentioned, are not typical and maybe not quite human. After recognizing Maggie's alter ego from the comic books he frequently reads, Logan realizes that superheroes are real. Friendship with his new next-door neighbor, the popular and sporty Elena, connects Logan with a powerful ally in the neighborhood, in school, and on the quest to save his new family. Although Logan does not know his parentage, in the illustrations that pepper the text he appears to have curly hair and brown skin. Elena is biracial. The alignment of a group of superheroes fighting against each other doesn't tread new ground, but the way the teens bring their own skills and ingenuity to the fight is novel. The book is fun, and the main characters are well developed. VERDICT An engaging superhero story with the message that, sometimes, not fitting in and seeing the world differently are gifts that just might help save the planet.-Erin Wyatt

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