The Trouble with Heroes

Title: The Trouble with Heroes

Author: Kate Messner

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Date of publication: 2025

Number of pages: 368

Genre: novel in verse, realistic

Audience age range: 9-14 years

A quick personal review:

Finn has many unanswered questions which cause him to not do certain school assignments such as a series of poetry about a hero. His mom receives a letter about him not getting enough gym hours and of course not turning in the poetry, so Finn must make up this work during the summer.  In anger, as he walks through the cemetery, he kicks a gravestone and knocks it over. This sets off a series of events.

The woman, whose headstone it was, was known for climbing all 46 Adirondack mountains multiple times.  Finn and his mother can’t afford to replace the headstone, so the deal is made that during the summer, Finn will summit all 46 mountains and take the dead woman’s dog along too.  Kelly, the woman’s daughter, outfits Finn with her mother’s old hiking boots, a backpack, and a ton of supplies that he must take. Finn doesn’t much care for the dog; she slobbers, sniffs, loves everyone, and seems to not follow directions.  This is sure to be a disaster.

Finn hikes with an experienced hiker each time, a series of three “nannies” he calls them. One talks a lot, one knows a lot, and one was the coach of Finn’s father.  Coach and Finn’s dad climbed together as did Finn’s dad and Kelly’s mother.  Finn is not immediately successful in hiking, but with each climb and the help of his “nannies”, he gets better.

Finn’s dad is famous - he’s a hero. On 9/11 the iconic photo of Dad shows him carrying a helpless girl with one shoe out of one of the crumbing buildings.  Finn can’t write about heroes.  He is not one.  His dad had been one, but his teacher just doesn’t understand what being a hero did to his dad.  He was never the same after 9/11, and later when he worked as a paramedic, he had to deal with the horrors of the Covid pandemic.  What is a hero?  Finn doesn’t know.  He just knows that he can’t write about them.

A transformation occurs within Finn.  He starts to like climbing, and at one point, he is coaching the coach to succeed in a climb.  Although he doesn't have all the answers he wants, including what killed his father, he does find his dad’s ashes and letters from Kelly’s mother.  He finds out the Dad was short only three summits before he died.  Finn can help his dad achieve the 46 total as he takes some ashes to the top of each one except the last.  He doesn’t get to the top - great action and suspense ends this novel.  Read it to find out!

Unique qualities:

The poetry is wonderful, and it paints pictures for the reader.  Suspense is continual as the reader learns in small snippets some details about Dad, and it is not until the end that all of the pieces come together.  

Red flags:

There are no obvious concerns with language or content; however, readers may be sensitive to the events of 9/11 and Covid.  Any reader who has had a parent pass away may also struggle with aspects of this novel.

Recommendations:

This is a great book for young readers who love adventure and are curious enough to wait to see what happens!  This novel combines the now with the past, the mistaken first impressions with a history that one thought he knew, and the adventure to reach the highest points possible.  A great coming of age novel, this book would appeals to male readers most, but it is absolutely approachable to female readers too.