Flights of Fancy
‘The Day I Lost My Superpowers’ and ‘Flight School’
Mired
in reality as adults are, they can find it hard to remember that
children’s outsize desires are often best fulfilled imaginatively. Two
entertaining new books make this point with a light touch. “The day I
discovered I could fly, I knew that I was special,” begins Michaël
Escoffier in “The Day I Lost My Superpowers,” illustrated by Kris Di
Giacomo. The speaker is a preschooler (seemingly a girl, though boy
readers will find there’s nothing to prevent them imagining themselves
in her place) who is convinced — in a way quite rightly — of her own
superpowers. These include the ability to launch herself off the
playground slide into the sandbox, to make cupcakes disappear by sheer
force of concentration, and to direct plants and inanimate objects to do
her will by staying in one place.
Escoffier
and Di Giacomo are an experienced comic team who previously worked
together on the picture books “Brief Thief” and “Me First!” Di Giacomo’s
drawings, in pencil, or possibly Conté crayon, are sketchy and full of
movement. As the supergirl swings, jumps, laughs, belly flops and at one
point, bawls, Di Giacomo captures something refreshing and
authentically childlike about her unselfconscious emotions.
Escoffier
keeps faith with his fearless protagonist, never wavering from telling
the story from her perspective. He relies on Di Giacomo’s visual
narration to explain what’s really going on. (In the case of the
disappearing cupcakes, traces of frosting on a certain person’s chubby
cheeks give a clue to their ultimate destination; a boast about
breathing underwater is accompanied by a picture of that same someone
bottom-side-up in the bathtub, breathing through a snorkel.) Escoffier
rounds up the story with a warmhearted, love-affirming twist that could
make “The Day I Lost My Superpowers” a contender for best book for
Mother’s Day; it turns out that superpowers run in the family.
Lita
Judge’s “Flight School” tells an equally funny — and emotionally
credible — story about the power of the imagination. A very determined
little penguin announces he has “the soul of an eagle” and “was hatched
to fly.” He enlists the help of some bigger birds in taking to the
skies. Tricked out in goofy red aviator glasses, he tries and tries
again and, of course, fails. Judge (of “Red Sled” and “Red Hat”) has a
delicate touch with expressions, and her disappointed flight instructors
look like music teachers whose favorite pupil abandons orchestra for
ice hockey. But all is not lost: They think up a plan to help the
penguin realize his dream. In the end, the flight he takes is a triumph
of the imagination over experience. It makes him happy all the same.
THE DAY I LOST MY SUPERPOWERS
By Michaël Escoffier
Illustrated by Kris Di Giacomo
32 pp. Enchanted Lion Books. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8)
FLIGHT SCHOOL
Written and illustrated by Lita Judge
40 pp. Atheneum. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8)