Dude Won’t Die

It can be a little hard to relate to a kid who attends wizard school. As fictional teenagers endowed with fantastic powers go, Harry Potter is all right, but Jacob Fielding is a little more realistic. The protagonist of Patrick Carman‘s novel Thirteen Days to Midnight is an Oregon orphan with a recently acquired secret superpower: He’s indestructible (physically speaking, that is — the pretty girl he spends many pages pining over and struggling to protect certainly has the ability to shatter his heart). Like other successful young-adult and children’s authors, the bestselling Carman mixes the insecurities and excitement of youth with a strong dose of fancy for a page-turning suspense story that we don’t mind nabbing from our little brother’s nightstand. Meet Carman at 2 p.m. when he visits Borders in Lee’s Summit (1664 Northwest Chipman Road, 816-347-0044) for a book signing.

Sun., April 25, 2 p.m., 2010