Everyone needs a hero. With so many unsavory characters clamoring for the attention of our boys, it’s important they know who deserves to be looked up to. The book, How to Be a Hero for Boys: Inspiration from Classic Heroes examines the character traits of a hero. As each trait is covered, readers learn more about a character from classic literature.

This short book (67 pages) was easy for me to read. It was a bit too challenging for my struggling third grader to read independently, so we read through it together, and talked about each chapter as we went. It’s definitely a book written for boys in their growing up years and is written to them directly instead of to an adult.

The first chapter introduces readers to six characters from classic literature. As each character is introduced, a bit about their book gets shared as well. It’s sort of like a teaser for each – providing just enough details to hopefully encourage the boys to want to read more!

The next ten chapters each focus on a single character trait. They begin with a quote from one of the books, and then see how the trait played an important role in the events of the book. For instance, chapter four is all about generosity of spirit and kind consideration. It opens with a quote from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The rest of the chapter explains a bit more about the backstory behind the quote. It examines how Tom chose to consider the needs of Huckleberry and help ensure they got met.

Each of these chapter are about four pages long. They include questions for your children to answer, to help them learn to emulate the character trait in their own lives.

The final chapter encourages boys to develop their own set of values as they imitate strong character traits from others. There’s also a list of recommended reading, including other works by the authors of the six characters studied in this book. At the very end, there’s a list of study questions for further study.

I appreciate the way the author handled books that include content not socially acceptable in today’s society. For instance, chapter six is about Tom Sawyer having courage. In this chapter, the author wrote, “Tom Sawyer was raised during a period of history when there was much inequality and racism, which is totally wrong, unacceptable, and incomprehensible to us today…But Mark Twain was a writer of great understanding of human nature and of the qualities that make a person truly honorable, and throughout the book he illustrates for us the types of biases and bigotry that were present during Tom Sawyer’s childhood years.” I felt this was an age-appropriate explanation for the target audience.

I will definitely be reading through this book again with my other boys as they grow.

-Product review by Lisa Tanner, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, February, 2018