Deadhead, Glenn Wood

Aimed at getting younger generations to read books (and I'd guess particularly boys), DEADHEAD is a very funny romp, populated by wonderful characters, incorporating messaging about power balances and friendship that's subtle, and cleverly executed.

Combining text and cartoon / graphic replays of previous events, this story starts out with the death of Constable Garrett, and continues with his resurrection as a conscious cyborg initially controlled by 13 year old inventor, entrepreneur and car thief Spencer Langley. Right here I guess some parents are wondering about whether or not this reader was misinterpreting the messaging, but it really is very cleverly done - the way all the bad is used to find pathways to good, the relationships in the story are brilliant, and there's a grab bag of things to be paying attention to - friendship and loyalty, jealousy and rivalry, ill-fated love, revenge, peril, and a zombie cop.

Cannot recommend this highly enough - particularly if you have kids who are a bit reluctant to pick up a book (or adults in the household for that matter - this works for those of us on the "older" end of the age scale as well).