Math Slam! Superhero School by Aaron Reynolds

Leonard was the only kid on his Little League team who could hit a baseball into orbit.

He was the only kid on his block who had welded the Bay City Bridge back together with heat vision.

So when his mom told him he was going to a special school, he couldn't wait for hero school to start.

He was fired up to leap tall building in a single bound. He was pumped up to bend steel beams with his bare hands. He was revved up and raring to go to stop speeding trains.

But Superhero School turns out to be a bit of a bust for the would-be caped crusader. Leonard's teacher, Mr. Tornado, is windy, all right. In fact, he talks on and on about math. The superkids wrestle with multiplication tables on Monday, deal with division on Tuesday, and conquer nothing but fractions on Wednesday. Except for being measured for his superhero uniform and having classmates with obvious super powers, it's just like regular school--except that his teacher has a wicked vortex. Leonard longs for some evil robots to vanquish or a runaway train to halt, but Mr. Tornado just chuckles and assigns more homework.

Mr. Tornado was beginning to annoy Leonard.

But when Leonard arrives at school on Friday, something is wrong. There are icicles and snowballs and empty Slurpee Cups everywhere! A sinister note has been left for the students:

Dear Hero Students,
Have kidnapped the teachers. Taking over the world. School cancelled.

Best wishes,
The Ice Zombies.

Superkids to the rescue! Since the only flying heroes in the class are Leonard and Sarah, each quickly takes one-half the class and tows them through the sky as they head for the Arctic Circle. But wait! The zombies are protected by an ice wall fifteen feet thick--and Leonard's heat vision rays can only melt five feet of ice! Leonard has to recruit two more superkids to multiply their powers to melt all fifteen feet. Confronting the villains, the superheroes quickly divide the zombies between them and each in his or her own way soon has the bad guys iced down for good.

But wait! What have the superheroes been doing here (besides being super)? Fractions, multiplication, division--MATH! Is this whole adventure a sneaky exercise designed by Mr. Tornado to convince the students that math itself has super powers? It all adds up, especially when the super students return to school and discover that they have all scored an A+ on Mr. Tornado's hands-on math pop quiz!

Andy Rash's cartooning style is well suited to Aaron Reynolds' superhero school tale in their new collaboration, Superhero School, (Bloomsbury, 2009) which puts a brand-new twist to the back-to-school tale. Illustrator Rash has lent his comic hand to noted author Daniel Pinkwater in their Fat Camp Commandos and Fat Camp Commandos Go West, and Aaron Reynolds is also the author of the popular Buffalo Wings and Chicks and Salsa.