Different Cloaks for Different Folks! Super Manny Stands Up! by Kelly DiPucchio

Every day Manny put on a different cape after school.

When he wore his blue cape he was fearless.

In his red cape he battled an army of of zombie bears.

In his purple cape Manny overpowers alien robots from hostile planets. In his green cape he bests forest giants.

Manny is indeed a legend in his own mind. With a wardrobe of capes for all occasions, he is strong and brave enough to defeat any mean monsters and bad guys he meets.

But Manny is a good kid, and since costumes are strictly forbidden (except on special days), at school Manny is cloaked only in the school uniform of superhero capes--

Manny saved his top-secret undercover cape for school.

The INVISIBLE CAPE!

But one day in the school cafeteria, he encounters a new bad guy loudly giving orders to his friend, Small One.

"I SAID MOVE!"

Tall one towered over Small One.

Manny can't move out of his seat. He can't even move his mouth. He looks around for a lunch monitor, but there's no help in sight. At last he manages to speak but his voice comes out very small and squeaky.

"Stop it."

Manny remembers his invisible cape and bumps it up a bit.

"Stop it."

Apparently, mild-mannered reproaches don't work so well with lunchroom bullies. All eyes are now on Manny and the bully. It's time for Super Manny to put up or shut up!

Will Manny find his super self and stand up to face down Tall One?

Once in a while, everyone needs to find his or her inner superhero, and Manny has his moment in Kelly DeiPucchio's newest, Super Manny Stands Up! (Atheneum Books, 2017).   Author-illustrator DiPucchio sets the scene and skillfully builds the suspense for the final shootout in the OK Cafeteria, with a timely, back-to-school message that sometimes bullies just need someone to stand up to them, especially when the small and meek are in need of rescue.

DiPucchio's pictures Manny and his superhero fantasies engagingly in her pencil and water ink illustrations and makes good use of thought balloons and font size to stage Manny's big moment. Youngsters will share Manny's moment of truth gleefully and also appreciate the secondary message that it's good to have some sidekicks on your side when super deeds are in order. Says Publishers Weekly, "When the lunchroom scene unfolds, the images take on surprising and touching drama, creating a powerful moment of truth."

SuperDuper Stink Detector! Kid Amazing Vs. The Blob by Josh Schneider

One day, while practicing his letters, Jimmy is interrupted by an extremely annoying howl. And, right on cue, there's the emergency catastrophe alarm! Jimmy rushes to the closet and--whoosh!--a secret door opens.

What could make a scholarly kid suddenly morph into a mightily amazing superhero? It's the sound of alarm that galvanizes him to grab his super suit and power gear, and sniff out the source of the wilting odor wafting through the house. What deadly force has such power?

Our hero dashes into his secret elevator, which takes him to ... (No, not a telephone booth...) a secret underground redoubt, where he dons his protective supersuit, complete with red rubber dishwashing gloves! He's ready to report to the Commissioner.

The Commissioner is washing dishes at the sink.

"What is it, Commissioner?" asks Kid Amazing.

"Jimmy--" says the Commissioner. "Kid Amazing," corrects Kid Amazing.

"Kid Amazing," says the Commissioner. "Hear that howling? Could you please see what's going on?"

An evil giant robot? Those space lobsters again? No, only one thing could howl such an annoying howl.

Kid Amazing's arch-nemesis, the Blob!

Kid Amazing breaks out his secret robo-sniffer and tracks the terrible scent to its source--the lair of The Blob. Opening the door, Kid Amazing is almost overcome. It's the Blob's ultimate weapon, the mega monstrous cloud o' stink!

But Kid Amazing is more powerful than any stench. He whips out his own secret weapons, his atomizer of de-stinkifying spray and his wonder wipes, which overcome the smell and the slime, and faces the Blob on her throne bravely. Her horrible howl is almost unhear-ably unbearable, but courageous Kid Amazing knows one more trick to silence The Blob, and he spots what he needs beneath her throne.

The Blob's howl neutralizer.

Kid Amazing swiftly stops her gob with the devilishly clever device. His work here is done.

Every mom (er, Commissioner) needs a Kid Amazing who knows how to strategically deploy a pacifier now and then, and in Josh Schneider's forthcoming Kid Amazing vs. the Blob (Houghton Mifflin Clarion Books, 2017), it's big brother Jimmy on the job, even offering a recommendation that the Commisioner supply a new "stink-containment unit" to the Blob's bottom.

Schneider's narration is appropriately serio-comic, as befits a superhero of such courage and quick thinking, even if Mom does softly suggest that he stop calling his sister The Blob, but with tongue well in cheek Schneider's spoof of caped crusaders comes off with a well-placed smidgen of deadpan dirty diaper parody. Schneider's artwork is bold and bright, with sly touches, as Jimmy's baby sister's howls of AAAAAAAAA wallpaper the entire house with their magnitude, and his final page pictures his bare-bottomed baby sister waving a clean diaper frantically as she seeks out the Commissioner for the final solution to the case. Comic and clever, this one will produce paroxysms of knowing giggles from big brothers and big sisters all over, with a novel twist on the superhero trope to boot.

For more sibling stories, share this one with Marla Frazee's big hits, the source for the movie Boss Baby, now playing at your local cineplex, The Boss Baby and The Bossier Baby. (Read my reviews here.)

Josh Schneider's earlier books include Everybody Sleeps (But Not Fred) (see my 2015 review here) and Tales for Very Picky Eaters.

Deal With It! Even Superheroes Have Bad Days by Shelly Becker

WHEN SUPERHEROES DON'T GET THEIR WAY,

WHEN THEY HAVE A BAD DAY . . .

It could be a bad scene!

They could crush trucks and toss them all around, and screech with eardrum-splitting super sounds.

THEY COULD USE LASER EYES

TO IGNITE FOREST FIRES.

But, would the caped crusaders do all that?

No. Superheroes are way too cool for temper tantrums.

If heroes need to blow off some steam, they exercise to the extreme. They mountain bike over towering peaks and run or hike from sea to shining sea. And when they cool down, they put on fresh super suits, don their capes, magic bracelets, or whatever, flex their muscles, and get busy....

HATCHING SUPER-PLANS TO HELP BANISH WORLD SADNESS,

BUILDING FABULOUS THEME PARKS FOR GIGGLES AND GLADNESS.

With a tongue-in-cheek look at super-hero-hood, Shelly Becker's Even Superheroes Have Bad Days (Sterling Books, 2016) gives kids a look at what could happen when super powers let a bad day get the best of them. It's not a pretty sight, and kids will get the premise that keeping your cool, exercising some self-control, actually is the super way to go.

Becker provides the the rhymes and rhythms to get readers into the swing of things, and artist Eda Kaban's variety of comical, conical-shaped superheroes will provide some of the giggles and gladness along with demonstrations of how, when push comes to shove, to be really super. And for yet another temper-taming tale, pair this one with Jane Yolen's and Mark Teague's How Do Dinosaurs Say I'M MAD? (Blue Sky Press).