Stuntboy, in the Meantime

By Jason Reynolds and Raúl the Third

A Schneider Family Award Honor Book for Middle Grade

From Newbery Medal honoree and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds comes a hilarious, hopeful, and action-packed middle grade novel about the greatest young superhero you’ve never heard of, filled with illustrations by Raúl the Third!

Portico Reeves’s superpower is making sure all the other superheroes—like his parents and two best friends—stay super. And safe. Super safe. And he does this all in secret. No one in his civilian life knows he’s actually…Stuntboy!

But his regular Portico identity is pretty cool, too. He lives in the biggest house on the block, maybe in the whole city, which basically makes it a castle. His mom calls where they live an apartment building. But a building with fifty doors just in the hallways is definitely a castle. And behind those fifty doors live a bunch of different people who Stuntboy saves all the time. In fact, he’s the only reason the cat, New Name Every Day, has nine lives.

All this is swell except for Portico’s other secret, his not-so-super secret. His parents are fighting all the time. They’re trying to hide it by repeatedly telling Portico to go check on a neighbor “in the meantime.” But Portico knows “meantime” means his parents are heading into the Mean Time which means they’re about to get into it, and well, Portico’s superhero responsibility is to save them, too—as soon as he figures out how.

Only, all these secrets give Portico the worry wiggles, the frets, which his mom calls anxiety. Plus, like all superheroes, Portico has an arch-nemesis who is determined to prove that there is nothing super about Portico at all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781534418189

Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); When I Was the Greatest; The Boy in the Black Suit; Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One; the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu); Look Both Ways; Stuntboy, in the Meantime; Ain’t Burned All the Bright (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and My Name Is Jason. Mine Too. (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. His debut picture book, There Was a Party for Langston, won a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

Book preview

Cover: Stuntboy, in the Meantime, by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Raúl the Third

Stuntboy, in the Meantime

by Jason Reynolds

drawings by Raùl the Third

Stuntboy, in the Meantime, by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Raúl the Third, Atheneum Books for Young Readers

For ten-year-old me

—Jason

Dedicated to Village Two apartments, where I grew up in Apartment G-1

—Raúl

This is STUNTBOY. This guy, right here. HIM.

You can’t tell just looking at him, but he’s the greatest superhero you’ve never ever heard of. And the reason you’ve never ever heard of him is because his superpower is making sure all the other heroes stay super. And safe. Supersafe. And he does it all on the hush. That’s right—it’s a secret. A secret secret. But now, because of my big mouth, you know. So if you see him, don’t call him Stuntboy. At least not when his mom, or his dad, or his granny, or any other heroes are around. Because they only know him by his secret identity. By his household name. His human name. But I clearly can’t keep secrets (or secret secrets), so I might as well tell you that name, too, which happens to be the best human name that a superhero can have—

Portico Reeves.

But in order to understand how he became the greatest superhero you’ve never ever heard of, you first have to know where it all started—

in a castle.

THE BIGGEST HOUSE IN THE WHOLE WIDE EVERYWHERE

Portico Reeves lives in the biggest house on the block. The biggest house in the whole wide neighborhood. Maybe even the biggest house in the whole wide city.

Don’t know if you would consider it a castle or nothin’ fancy like that, but to Portico, it sure seems like one. A giant castle of rectangles made from the glassiest glass and the brickiest bricks on Earth.

Okay, so some people call where Portico Reeves lives an apartment building—Skylight Gardens. And that’s fine, too. No matter what it’s called, Portico feels lucky to live there. And why wouldn’t he? Living in an apartment building is the best. It’s like living in a television where behind every door is a new TV show.

And Portico knows all the characters.

Like Mr. Mister, who stands outside apartment 1B all day long tying and retying and re-retying and re-re-retying his shoes, tighter and tighter each time. He does this because he’s scared he’ll leave his feet somewhere, and as long as he has on shoes, he knows he’s still… feeted (which is way better than being de-feeted)!

Or Frisbee Foster in apartment 3G, who got her nickname from being thrown back and forth by her big sisters when she was a baby.

Or even the kooky characters in Portico’s apartment, like his grandma Gran Gran, who was so old, her hair had changed colors from black to gray to white to… purple!

Oh, and let’s not forget about the smarty, arty, purry, furry family cat who’s called

A New Name Every Day.

But enough about them. Portico’s granny and cat are cool—especially the cat—but the best thing climbing walls and jumping off counters in apartment 4D is Portico himself.

Only problem is, he also has a terrible case of…

What?

You’ve never heard of the frets?

You’re kidding, right?

The un-sit-stillables?

The worry wiggles?

The bowling ball belly bottoms?

The jumpy grumpies?

(Or the grumpy jumpies, depending on who you ask.) The hairy scaries, or worse, the VERY hairy scaries?

No?

Maybe it’s because your mom probably calls it what Portico’s grandma calls it—anxiety. (That X is tricky, ain’t it? Might cause some anxiety.

Try this: ang-ZY-uh-tee.)

Just means there’s nervous in the brain that makes nervous in the body. That’s… THE FRETS!

And the only person who ever seems to be able to help Portico get unnervous and de-fret is the other best person in the building—the one and only, only and one…

drumroll, please…

Zola Brawner!

Zola lives one and a half doors down from Portico. They’re best friends. Like, best best. Two fingers on a two-finger hand. Known each other for, let me think… 163 days (163 days?!), and declared themselves best friends on day number one, which is all the time you really need to know if someone’s your best friend or not.

It all happened after the first day of school. Zola was new, just moved in to Skylight Gardens. She hopped off the bus, and guess who came chiming and sliming up like the stinkiest, weenaged snot-bot ever, who thinks he’s not the stinkiest, weenaged snot-bot ever, just because he got an earring he swears he put in his ear all by himself and didn’t even cry—Herbert Singletary the Worst. (Yes, that’s his real name.)

When Herbert Singletary the Worst saw Zola, he couldn’t help himself.

"Then why yours look like a chewed up pencil eraser?" Herbert kept dogging, slapping Portico on the back of the head.

He went on and on, boasting and roasting, all while trailing Portico and Zola down the hall. With parents like that, who you gonna be when you grow up? Herbert taunted. "Oh, I know. Probably… n o b o d y!"

Portico wanted to turn around and tie Herbert Singletary the Worst into the best knot ever. A triangle double-half hitch you-can’t-get- this-knot-out knot, like the one Mr. Mister showed him how to make for his sneakers. But Portico tried fighting back once before, and… let’s just say it didn’t work out so well.

After an eon, Portico finally arrived at 4D, his apartment, and tapped on the door lightly. His grandma was always home.

Gran Gran, Portico called. His voice, breaky and shaky. "I’m home. Let me in, please." But Gran Gran never came. Portico was pretty sure she was resting her eyes. She was so old and had seen so much—she used to be a nurse and looked at balloons and tubes and squigglies for a thousand years—her eyes always needed rest. Only problem was, whenever she was resting her eyes, her ears seemed to be resting too. And… her mouth seemed to snore. Or is that her nose? Weird.

Luckily—what with Herbert now whispering insults to Portico like sour secrets, and the frets turning Portico’s insides into a tower of terrible—Zola’s mom opened the door to their apartment, 4E. Phew!

Reviews for Stuntboy, in the Meantime

[salsabrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Portico Reeves imagines himself as superhero Stuntboy who has all kinds of superhero moves. But his secret identity is as Portico Reeves, a kid who lives with his parents and grandmother in the Skylight Gardens apartments. His best friend in the building is Zola and they both love the show "Super Space Warriors." His nemesis is Herbert Singletary the Worst whose bullying often gives Portico the "frets," or anxiety. But his parents' loud arguments and fights have been giving Portico the frets. Can Stuntboy save the family? As a total work, Stuntboy bounces around like a wild child who gets into everything. Raul the Third's illustrations are all movement: pop, zoom and flow, with the occasional explosive double-paged spread. Even the font is expressive. The non-stop story action will draw in even reluctant readers.

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Super illustrations, hand drawn text and a collage-like quality make this book very fun to engage with. I also loved the episode breaks and the theme music treatment as each story begins. I didn't really know what to do with the lack of resolution each time Stuntboy interrupted his parents' arguments, and the storyline meanders all over the place -- which is innovative and engaging, but also deeply unsatisfying to me as a reader. Note, I am not the intended audience, so take what you will from that. I loved the exuberance of life in the building, Zola and Portico's awesome friendship, and the meditation/yoga ideas to help manage the frets. It's not the kind of book where the hero comes out empowered and manages to change the world; it is the kind of book that teaches kids how to endure what they can't change, and how to use their imaginations to take care of themselves.

[sweetiegherkin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Portico Reeves is a kid living in a "castle" -- an apartment building with lots of friendly neighbors. A new neighbor becomes his "best best" friend, especially since the two of them share a love of the same fantasy/superhero/action-adventure TV show. When they talk about taking on their own superhero identities, Portico's is that of Stuntboy, someone who will do all the action moves so that the other supers will stay safe. Everything is going great except that his parents won't stop bickering and fighting over everything as they plan to move into two new apartments in the building.This book was a quick-paced, fun read. Portico and his neighbors are all a bit quirky but in a relatable way. At times, Portico has an almost Amelia-Bedelia outlook, such as how he constantly thinks of his parents' fighting as "the meantime" because they send him off to do something else "in the meantime" of their debates. It is a fairly sensitive look at divorce and the emotions that children go through while their parents are arguing, even with Portico being sort of oblivious to the fact of the divorce process for much of the book. He is very aware of being bullied by one neighbor though, and that storyline is also deftly handled, with the bully eventually being softened with a backstory of his own. And, Portico deals with having anxiety, which is stated as such but also described in child-friendly terms for the reader to understand what that feels like for Portico as he has panic attacks. The story is presented in a kind of hybrid graphic novel-chapter book, which will appeal to kids who like books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Invisible Emmie, Pie in the Sky, and others. It also helps make the book read quicker, which can be appealing to reluctant readers. I did feel like the ending was a bit abrupt, but I suppose that's because other titles might follow in the series.

[ewyatt_16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Portico deals with anxiety. He leans heavy on his imagination. His new best friend brings joy to his life where his parents are increasingly fighting. It's clear they are separating, but Portico doesn't understand that this is about to happen. Colorful, highly illustrated with some graphic novel features.

[surlysal_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What can’t Jason Reynolds do!? A great graphic novel for people dealing with anxiety and/or have parents divorcing. If a continuation happened I wouldn’t be disappointed at all.

[aliceap-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a Children's Librarian, I try my best to be diverse in my reading choices. However, over the last couple of years while being at my current branch I've not read as much middle grade as the patrons I have the most interaction with are either pre-k aged or senior citizens. But then I saw all the press for Jason Reynold's latest book Stuntboy and I thought it looked too fun to pass up.But this is not one of those books that translates to the "unintended audience" in my opinion. [A/N: The illustrations are a treat for any aged reader.] I felt utterly out of touch with the "youths" as I was reading this. lol This isn't bad news though! I have no doubt that middle grade readers will absolutely LOVE this book. The main character, Portico, is realistic and likable and his confusion over the meaning of words (the meantime being the main one) will be a delight to readers who do understand what's being said. It's the start of a series so if you have young graphic novel enthusiasts in your life this would be a great series for them to sink their teeth into.