Superhero School by Aaron Reynolds Illustrated by Andy Rash

from goodreads

3.5 stars

It is almost Hallowe'en. We carved our pumpkins on Sunday so they are all ready to go. When I go looking for pumpkins I tend not to go for the most perfect looking ones. I like the ones that are oddly shaped, or have weird bumps on them, or have scratches and scars. I find that those are the pumpkins that end up giving the jack o' lantern so much character. Also, my carving skills are not top notch. Triangles and a couple toothed grin are about the extent of my jack o' lanterns so the odd ball pumpkins are good enough for me.

We live in a rather aging neighbourhood. We don't have a lot of kids on our street. Our first year in our house we had two kids, not including my own. Last year we had no kids but we did have university students going around giving us chocolate to raise awareness about free trade chocolate. (It was very yummy).

The kids have gone to Hallowe'en parties at Brownies and Sparks (those are branches of the Girl Guide organization). It is always fun to see what other kids decide to wear. All the Sparks, so that is girls aged 5-6, were wearing princess costumes except for one wonder woman, and my girl who was a very fashion witch. At brownies, which are girls aged 7-8 there was a greater variety. There were zebras and cheerleaders and even Amelia Earhart. It's amazing what a year or two will do to children's interests.

Now the real test will be having my kids not change their minds about what they want to be before Friday. I am costume finding/making out. What do you like to do for Hallowe'en?

Synopsis

Leonard knows that there is something special about him so it wasn't a surprise that he was enrolled in a special superhero school. What he didn't know was they would be doing math instead of fighting monsters.

My Thoughts

This was a fairly amusing book. It was nice to see that even superheros need to have a basic education, that they cannot rely on their talents alone. It was cool how the author was able to weave math into superhero stuff and I loved how the kids were tested on their math skills.

Superhero stuff is so over done now with all the different movies that are out now. This book was able to have a fresh vibe with it, though it still had some cliche superhero stuff thrown in.

For me it was just meh. My kids enjoyed it more. I am glad that I read it, but it wouldn't be my first choice in books to read to them. So, the 3 stars come more from just a personal preference then anything negative or lacking from the author or illustrator.

So if you want to read about math learning, ice zombie finding superhero students this book might be right for you.