These are big questions to discuss in a young-adult novel, but they are only a small part of what Norma Howe tackles in The Adventures of Blue Avenger. How did a normal sixteen-year-old boy become the hero of his own comic strip, fall in love with a girl named Omaha Nebraska Brown, and invent a recipe for perfect dripless lemon meringue pie? What does this have to do with the sixteenth-century heretic Giordano Bruno? How can we end the plague of handgun violence in America?

A thought-provoking combination of humor, philosophy, and romance, The Adventures of Blue Avenger has something for every teenage reader (and even for a few smart adults).