The Unlikely Heroes Club
by Kate Foster
Intermediate    Candlewick    208 pp.
4/25    9781536239041    $17.99
e-book ed.  9781536242225    $17.99

All eleven-year-old Oli, who is autistic, likes to do is design buildings on his Design-a-House app. He’s called a “wimp” and “boring” at school, but otherwise kids mainly leave him alone. His parents sign him up for HERO Club over spring break to help him learn how to socialize and make friends. Oli sees this as a “terrible fate,” but he does make friends, start to learn how to handle his emotions, and even orchestrate a rescue mission of a dog who is trapped in a nearby building. Foster creates a first-person point of view that effectively lets readers observe the world the way a young autistic boy might. (Foster herself is autistic, as she indicates in the acknowledgments.) And what they see in Oli is a loving child who is ultimately open to friendships and who discovers that he loves dogs. Like lots of boy-and-dog stories, this one may move readers to tears, not because it ends like Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows but because Oli is such a well-drawn, likable character whom readers will come to care about and cheer on.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.