'Fess Up the Mess Up! Even Superheroes Make Mistakes by Shelly Becker

When superheroes are not up to speed,
when they slip up, and trip up, and fail to succeed...

They could cry, or deny, or claim it's not fair,
or rip off their cloaks and quit in despair.

Everybody makes mistakes, but nobody likes to admit it when they do.

Superheroes have super powers that would make it super easy to cover up their screw-ups. But THEY DON'T!

If they miss the real felon, they don't start yellin'
that it's not their fault--they were locked in the vault.

If their homemade cake is too salty,
it's not the corner baker who's faulty.

But ashamed superheroes who goofed up somehow,
first stop and consider what's best to do NOW.

In Shelly Becker's latest, Even Superheroes Make Mistakes (Sterling Children's Books, 2018), superheroes don't dodge the blame bullet. When they mess up, they 'fess up, and when they nap, they take the rap.

When superheroes are not up to speed,
when they slip up, and trip up, and fail to succeed...

They could hang their heads down; they could but they don't!
Because real superheroes just wouldn't, they won't!

Artist Eda Kaban's in-motion illustrations offer lots of laughs at the legions of ways there are for various superheroes to slip up, but winners don't whine, and the supers learn from their bloopers. There are some serious life lessons about personal responsibility here, softened by Becker's lighthearted rhythmic rhyming quatrains and Kaban's comic portrayals of heroes taking pratfalls as we all do. For a super pair, share this one with Becker's earlier superhero story, Even Superheroes Have Bad Days (Read my 2017 review here.)