Twelve-year-old Pete Plain is an ordinary boy with an extraordinary secret who lives in a crazy town called Jericho.

On the last day of school, his friend Jack gives him a powerful but illegal comic book—not to read, but to hide. That afternoon, the school bully shoots Jack with toxic slime. Uncertain how to help him, Pete sneaks a peek at the comic and gets drawn into a different world. There he goes on an unforgettable adventure.

When Jack discovers what Pete has done, he takes the book away. Pete wants it back, but the forces of evil that haunt his hometown are determined to keep it from him. When Pete glimpses the ghostly grizzly dividing his family, he knows he must do something to stop it. The author of the forbidden comic books gives Pete special gifts of super sight and super speed, but will the boy from the broken home use those gifts for good or will he wallow in the bitter malady known as Sadly Absent Dad Syndrome?

Much is at stake, for the slime is deadly, and catching the bullies behind it will prove to be no easy task.

In Speed of Sight, C. R. Flamingbush presents Jericho, a drab town where everyone observes rigid rules. So when his friend hands him a banned comic book for safekeeping, Pete can’t resist opening it. It’s no ordinary book: with a bright light, it rescues Pete and his friend from bullies. Pete, meanwhile, gets tagged by the author of his own story for some special super powers. Now he can run amazingly fast instead of stumbling all the time. Echoing the stories he reads in the banned comic books, Pete fights the shadowy spirits that egg on the bullies, sicken his friend, and separate Pete’s parents. It’s a fun concept—comic book stories within Pete’s comic-book-style story, like plays within a play.

Best for: Older children and young teens who’d enjoy a comic book told in prose.

Discern: Themes of spiritual warfare, which lack a mention of Jesus or his place in this kind of world.