Avengers, Assemble! Kidlit Edition

The Avengers opened yesterday with great fanfare. Because it is a Joss Whedon project, I’ll admit to being just a bit more interested than usual. From what I gathered, superheroes (and their egos) must cooperate to save the world as we know it because the plot hinges on an advanced weapon (a blue box, but not the blue box) of unthinkable doom called the tesseract…

Calling Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which, anyone? Maybe Thor, the Avenger of the Legolas blond hair, was in cahoots with the Mrses, and it’s thanks to the Norse god of inclement weather that A Wrinkle in Time begins as famously as it does: it was a dark and stormy night.

Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which are already cast in the Agent Nick Fury (aka the man in charge) role, but which kidlit characters across two dimensions would you unite to don the cape and take down the forces of evil?

1. The Super Genius:

a. Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time–arrogant and a bit of a sociopath, perfect for added depth

b. Artemis Fowl–brilliant loner, has a criminal history

c. Bean from Ender’s Game–even smarter than the Ender Wiggins

d. Matilda Wormwood–witty, naughty, with a penchant for vigilante justice towards her parents, but sanest of the bunch.

2. The “Heart”:

a. Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time–fights her battles by the MacDonald’s tagline: she’s lovin’ IT

b. Lyra from The Dark Materials trilogy–her actions usually involve the adverb, “passionately,” no matter what she’s doing

c. Caleb from Sarah, Plain and Tall–his desire for Sarah to stay even though she misses the sea is so endearing

d. Despereaux–for his love of Princess Pea, he endures being cut off from his family and cast into the dungeons. And he’s a mouse.

3. The Loyal Sidekick:

a. Calvin O’Keefe from A Wrinkle in Time–between him, Meg, and Charles Wallace, he’s the least odd, least intelligent, and least self-centered of the bunch.

b. Ron Weasley from Harry Potter–even he knows his place in the trio

c. Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings–”I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.” ‘Nuff said.

d. Huck Finn–like all good sidekicks, he comes into his own and gets his own adventures, too.

4. The Muscle:

a. Thorgil from The Sea of Trolls trilogy–a Berserker’s daughter, her greatest goal in life is to fall in battle

b. the badger lords from the Redwall series–when the blood rage comes on them, it’s Eulalia all the way!

c. Bigwig from Watership Down–the fiercest and strongest rabbit in Hazel’s gang, he gets sent on all the suicide missions

d. Butler from Artemis Fowl–armed with “a Sig Sauer in his shoulder holster, two shrike- throwing knives in his boots, a derringer two-shot up his sleeve, garrotte wire in his watch, and three stun grenades concealed in various pockets…and a good old ball bearing cosh stuffed down his shirt,” Butler can still kill you a hundred ways without using any of it. Oh, and he’s trained in Cordon Bleu cooking.

5. The Rogue:

a. Severus Snape from Harry Potter–were you sure which side he was on until the end of Book 7?

b. Edmund Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia–moody and selfish, Edmund experiences a redemptive transformation and becomes one of the kings of Narnia

c. Gilly Hopkins from The Great Gilly Hopkins–difficult, bitter and angry from being bounced from one foster family to another, Gilly has built defense mechanisms that are more impenetrable than Mordor

d. Boromir from The Lord of the Rings–doughty, patriotic, and prone to thinking too highly of himself, he betrays the fellowship but turns out to be honorable in the end.

Who would make your roster? Let us know!

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