Superdog: The Heart of a Hero [RM 20]

RM[20]
Caralyn Buehner (Author), Mark Buehner (Illustrator)

Lots of kids want to be superheroes, and apparently so do certain animals. Two new books make good use of every child's longing to be the biggest, bravest, strongest. InSupersnouts! young pig Hamlet notices masked men entering the barnyard and alerts two older pigs. They slip into the costumes of the Superhero Pig Patrol and allow Hamlet to get some "on-the-hoof" training as a superhero. He causes almost as much trouble as he solves before triumphantly catching the burglars (though the actual capture is somewhat abbreviated). This rather slight story has a high quantity of hammy jokes along with plenty of bangs and booms. The attraction here is the zippy watercolor artwork, so action-filled that each spread practically quivers with movement. Although the pictures are not cartoon-style, this raucous offering does have elements of that robust medium.