Friday, July 15, 2016

Guy Friday- Supergirl at Super Hero High

27405470Yee, Lisa. Supergirl at Super Hero High
July 5th 2016 by Random House Books for Young Readers
Copy provided by publisher 

When the planet Krypton is in danger of exploding, Kara Zor-El's parents put her in an escape craft and send her to earth. She ends up living with the Kents, although Clark is a good ten years older due to variances in the time-space continuum. While the Kents are very nice to her, she feels that she should probably go to school somewhere else, and Korugar Academy. She also is a fan of Wonder Woman, so she's okay with going to Super Hero High. When she arrives, however, she damages the Amethyst Tower and proceeds to make a lot of klutzy moves. She does make friends with tech support helper Barbara Gordon, who works at the school but doesn't go there, and people aren't too unkind. She even makes some good friends when she invites everyone to the Kents for Thanksgiving. When dastardly deeds are occurring involving the school's Boom Tubes (sort of portals to other times and places), Supergirl helps to investigate, and comes to feel that Super Hero High could be her home. 

Strengths: DC and Marvel comics are huge right now, and I have a lot of students who are REALLY into the stories and movies. (I had a big conversation with one about whether Batman or Superman would win. I'm sorry. Batman? No. But comics are not my flavor of geek.) I think it's especially important to get boys to read books about all sorts of girls and given the problems that have faced women who do embrace the world of comics, throwing in some female super heroes is an excellent idea. I'm very sure that this series (Wonder Woman at Super Hero High) was started with the best of intentions. 
Weaknesses: Like the first book in the series, this felt a bit contrived. Clearly well researched, with lots of DC characters thrown in, it would have helped to have an index of characters in the back, for those of us who aren't fluent in DC. I was a little confused by Granny Goodness not being evil and thought she would come into play more. 
What I really think: Even though I would like these books to be a little better written (and not be in cheap paper over board bindings!), I'm kind of looking forward to reading about Barbara Gordon when it comes out January 3rd, 2017, especially since these can be read independently. 


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