Its 1954, a year when polio, known as the great crippler of children, terrified parents. Jesses mom wont let him go to the playground or hang out with friends for fear that he will catch the disease-so Jesse stays home, making up his own games with his grandfather and dog, Gort. No matter what Jesse does, he cant seem to please his father, who wanted a basketball-baseball-football kind of son. Instead, Jesse spends his days drawing pictures, watching cowboy movies, and playing war with his army of metal soldiers. Then polio strikes, paralyzing Jesses legs. With the help of an unlikely girlfriend, Jesse turns his imagination to creating comic strips, reinterpreting his life as The Wonder Kid, with the power to make things happen by thinking them. In this strange summer of UFOs and fallout shelters and deadly hurricanes, Jesse discovers just how much he has in common with his father and what it really means to be a hero.