Heroes

Heroes (2024) is a middle grade historical adventure novel by New York Times bestselling American author Alan Gratz, whose children’s fiction includes Two Degrees (2022), Ground Zero (2021), Grenade (2018), and Ban This Book (2017). Gratz is known for his historical accuracy and high-stakes adventure, and his depiction of tense and dangerous historical events. Heroes follows Frank McCoy and his best friend Stanley Summers as they live through the harrowing experience of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, complicated by the racism Stanley faces because of his Japanese American heritage. Their story explores the loss of innocence in the face of war and the meaning of true heroism.

This guide refers to the 2024 hardcover edition of Heroes published by Scholastic Press, which includes a bonus comic.

Content Warning: This guide and source material include depictions of wartime violence and death, as well as depictions of racism. The source material also uses anti-Asian racial slurs, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.

Plot Summary

On December 6, 1941, best friends Frank and Stanley ride their motorboat through Pearl Harbor, heading to their homes on the Ford Island US Naval Base. Though the boys are different—Frank is white and scared of everything; Stanley is Japanese American and confident—they bond over their love of comic books. They make plans to create their own superhero, the Arsenal of Democracy.

On their way home, they confront two school bullies. Stanley fights them while Frank watches, frozen with fear. Stanley is angry with Frank for not backing him up. Frank is too ashamed to explain that ever since an Incident when he lived in Florida, he has been afraid of everything.

At Stanley’s house, both families prepare dinner, including Frank’s mother, Stanley’s mother, and Frank’s older sister Ginny. Outside, Frank’s father grills hamburgers with Stanley’s father. The fathers work together at the Naval airfield. Brooks Leonard, a seaman and Ginny’s boyfriend, is also with them. Brooks invites the boys to tour the USS Utah with him the following day.

On the morning of December 7, Frank and Stanley join Brooks on the retired battleship Utah. Suddenly, Japanese planes attack. As bombs fall, striking Ford Island and the battleships in the harbor, Brooks tries to get the boys to safety. The Utah capsizes and they are forced to jump off. However, Frank freezes in fear, forcing Brooks to turn back and help him. When the boys escape the ship and swim to shore, they realize that Brooks is no longer with them. They find his body floating in the water. Frank blames himself for Brooks’s death.

Frank tells Stanley that, after being severely injured in a dog attack, he is afraid of everything all the time. Now, he constantly imagines every worst-case scenario. He fears that Stanley will no longer want to be his friend. Instead, Stanley says that Frank’s superpower is risk assessment.

They cross the Naval airfield, where they find their fathers preparing their defenses. Mr. Summers asks them to find Stanley’s mother and then run to an old World War I (WWI) bunker called the Dungeon where civilians have gone for safety.

The boys find Mrs. Summers burying her Japanese family heirlooms in the backyard. She explains that many white Americans already hated Asian Americans, and now that the Japanese have attacked, it will be much worse. She and Stanley are about to face violent racism and must hide who they are. The battleship Arizona explodes in the harbor, sending debris flying. A large piece of the ship lands on Frank’s house, crushing it. Afraid, they all run to the Dungeon.

The two bullies from the day before block the entrance. They refuse to let Stanley and his mother inside, using racial slurs. Furious, Frank tackles the boys. The fight breaks up when a wounded sailor appears. Mrs. Summers helps the sailor inside the Dungeon where Mrs. McCoy and Ginny rush to help. Frank tells Ginny that Brooks is dead, and she says they should help others in his place.

Frank, Ginny, and Stanley return to the beach to help injured sailors. They find a submariner named Joseph Kowalczyk whose wounds are severe. Ginny begs Frank to take him to the hospital across the harbor. Frank agrees, feeling he owes her for causing Brooks’s death. Frank and Stanley take Joseph across the harbor in their motorboat. They find another sailor, Patrick, trapped by burning oil in the water, and Frank swims out to rescue him. They take both injured sailors to the hospital. When a military police officer points his rifle at Stanley, Patrick defends him, calling both boys heroes.

After the attack, Frank and his family live in temporary barracks while awaiting a transfer to California. The US declares war on Japan and begins detaining Japanese Americans in Hawaii, including Stanley’s grandmother. Stanley joins a group of Japanese Americans who volunteer to build shelters and dig graves. Frank gives Stanley the script for their comic and asks him to illustrate it. The novel concludes with the first issue of their comic, featuring their superhero portrayed as a Japanese American man fighting evil.