The Most Awesome Character in the World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Author | Adam Pottle |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Ana Sanfelippo |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Adventure Children's |
| Publisher | Reycraft Books |
Publication date | 2020 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 32 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4788-6812-5 |
The Most Awesome Character in the World is a 2020 children's adventure book by author Adam Pottle and illustrator Ana Sanfelippo. The book depicts a deaf girl named Philomena who uses her imagination and drawing skills to create her own superhero (the titular "Most Awesome Character").
Shortly after the book's publication in September 2020, Pottle asked readers not to buy it due to an illustration that he viewed as racially insensitive. The publisher Reycraft Books later withdrew it from sale.
Philomena, a young deaf girl, suffers from excessive feedback in her hearing aids. She cannot use her imagination when wearing them and prefers to communicate with sign language.
While Philomena is exploring an imaginary jungle, her father interrupts her to give her a book about a deaf woman. However, she thinks the woman on the cover looks "sad" and is not interested in reading it.
Believing she can tell a better story than the book, Philomena starts to draw. She envisions a colorful set of characters in her bedroom around her, including monsters, robots, and people in wheelchairs. Finally, a giant three-eyed green woman in a superhero costume, whom Philomena calls "THE MOST AWESOME CHARACTER", emerges from the page.
THE MOST AWESOME CHARACTER demands that the other characters hold a talent show. The monsters release a symphony of burps, while the people in wheelchairs perform aerial stunts. THE MOST AWESOME CHARACTER defeats one monster by breathing lightning and beats two others in a wrestling ring. Philomena shows off her own talent by growing fifty feet tall and creating a new star, which she throws into the sky.
After she finishes imagining, Philomena takes a rest and collects her drawings into a book, which she tells her father was written by "the most awesome writer in the world—me".
Background
Pottle, a Canadian author, was born in Kamloops and as of 2020 lived in Saskatoon.[1][2] He was born deaf and wrote The Most Awesome Character in the World due to feeling that children's literature lacked relatable deaf characters.[2][3]
The Most Awesome Character in the World was written in 2017 after an editor at Reycraft Books, a publisher based in New York, saw Pottle's posts on Twitter about deaf literature.[3][4] The book was commissioned under Reycraft's "Own Voices" imprint, which focused on books with characters of diverse identities written by authors who share those identities.[3]
Pottle signed a work for hire contract with Reycraft, receiving a flat payment while giving the publisher ownership of the story.[3][4][5] Pottle said that he requested a deaf illustrator for the book; Reycraft selected Sanfelippo, a non-deaf children's book illustrator born in Argentina and based in Madrid.[3][4]
