REX ZERO, KING OF NOTHING

A carefree childhood in 1962 Ottawa has more depth than first appearances indicate. Rex Norton-Norton (known as Rex Zero to his friends) has plenty of worries. He's in major trouble for skipping out on Armistice Day ceremonies to play football with his friends. His teacher Miss Garr is totally nuts. His sister Annie Oakley is convinced that their dad fathered a half-German kid during the war. But all of that fades when Rex finds a missing address book which leads him to adventure in the form of a beautiful woman in grave peril. Multiple opportunities arise for inspiring, gallant stands from Rex and his friends. Rex's story is gentler than is currently fashionable, but these seemingly uncorrupted characters are well aware of darkness: divorce, domestic abuse, the deaths of soldiers. None of it touches their heroic childlike determination. An idealized portrait of feisty kids, but affecting for all that. (Fiction. 9-11)