The Super Book for Superheroes by Jason Ford

-




The Super Book for Superheroes by Jason Ford is SUPER AWESOME!! Ford begins his book (after the "This Book Belongs To" page that lets kids enter their secret identity and their superhero name) with this fantastic message, "OK! SO you want to draw superheroes doing things like flying and fighting supervillains. All you need are some pencils and pens and your very own superpower . . . YOUR IMAGINATION!" In the pages that follow, Ford gives kids everything they need to inspire imagination and explore creatively. The Super Book for Superheroes has the perfect balance of structure and freedom, encouraging and suggesting with instruction and ideas then letting kids run wild with blank pages. There are pages that show, step by step, how to draw a superhero, how to draw a costume and how to draw a superhero running followed by prompt pages that give kids the space to practice what they have learned. 


More prompt pages really get imaginations going. X-ray vision lets artists show what their superhero sees inside a building and a van. Other prompt pages let kids draw the superheroes behind secret identities like little old lady and family dog.


There are hideouts and secret islands to be filled in, houses and sub-aquatic headquarters to be designed for heroes and villains, scenes from the past and future to be detailed when superheroes time travel. There are flying machines, super-cars and super-cars for villains  to be designed, and a utility belt to be stocked.



There is a Super Hero Secret Code Wheel that lets readers write their own secret messages. There is a grid where kids can draw a map of their neighborhood and panels with prompts that let kids create their own comic strip with their super hero.


As if that wasn't enough, there are pages with some super cool stickers and pop-out super hero masks to be designed and decorated, then worn and even a pop-out super hero to color and create.




There is just one tiny thing that I almost hate to mention here: the superheroes in The Super Book for Superheroes are never referred to specifically by gender (therefore giving kids the ability to make them into whatever they want, boy, girl, space alien, or narwhal superheroes) which I think is fantastic, but the illustrations of superheroes are pretty clearly masculine. The lack of gender specificity definitely makes the book more girl friendly, but I do kind of wish that there had been a few pages of female super heroes for girls to create. Or, maybe Jason Ford is already hard at work on the next Super Book for Superheroes that, while remaining gender neutral when it comes to the use of pronouns, clearly has some super hero girls doing some super superhero things.

Source: Review Copy






Popular posts from this blog

Fox + Chick: The Sleepover and Other Stories by Sergio Ruzzier

-
Image
Fox + Chick : The Sleepover and Other Stories  by Sergio Ruzzier Review Copy from Chronicle Books Friends. Opposites. Inhabitants of a pastel-hued, water color world that is vaguely surreal, Fox and Chick are back for a third installment of their inviting, if curious, easy-to-read stories. In "The Sleepover," "The Hammer," and "The Surprise," Chick's odd logic is once again upending Fox's life. Happily, Fox responds with patience and even wisdom at times. To these unforgettable characters and luminous illustrations, Ruzzier brings a sublime simplicity that makes this series perfect for emerging readers, adding books with character and intelligence to the often dull world of beginning reader books. If you aren't familiar with this delightful duo, definitely check out my reviews of the first two books (links below) where I put the greatness of Ruzzier's work into historical ( Frog & Toad ) context. Then check out ALL of Ruzzier's p
Read more

Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala

-
Image
Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala Review Copy from Abrams Kids I picture-walked Be a Tree! three times before I actually read the words. Felicita Sala's illustrations for Maria Gianferrari's poetic text are mesmerizingly immersive and richly colorful within a palette of earth tones. Throughout the text, Gianferrari, who shares her inspiration for this book in the author's note ( Peter Wohleben's The Hidden Life of Trees ), gently maintains the human connection to trees and the connections (and communications) trees share with each other.  Be a Tree!  begins exuberantly, inviting the reader to "Be a tree! Stand tall. Stretch your branches to the sun. Let your roots curl, coil in the soil to ground you." From your spine/trunk to your skin/bark and your heart/pith, the words carry you inward and then zoom outward and up to the canopy and ultimately, the forest. "You are one of many trees," and our roots "twine with fung
Read more

Reading Levels: A Quick Guide to Determining if a Book Is Right for Your Reader

-
Image
While I wrote an article titled Reading Levels: How I Assign Reading Levels to Books, How the Publishers Do It and How You Can Help Your Reader Find the Right Book at the Right Time that discusses how reading levels are determined by professionals and amateurs like myself, there is more on this subject to discuss. Determining the reading level of a book from the children's section is never easy, mostly because there are several different standardized methods of determining reading levels. Add to this the fact that knowing their children's reading level is most often the only tool a parent is armed with when exploring the bookstore, library, website, etc, and the job becomes even more difficult. While I think that knowing a child's reading level is a very valuable tool if your child is reading below grade level, I think that it is a secondary consideration when finding books for children reading above, especially well above, grade level because, in most cases, content app
Read more