[As an experiment last fall, I invited self-publishers to submit their best new titles for review. About a dozen heeded the call, and I am reviewing their books in this space.]

A Cape!; written and illustrated by Marty Kelley. Marty Kelley, 2014. 32.pp. ISBN 978-0-692-22596. 16.95.

Who needs pants? Not the superhero of this story, for whom briefs, sneakers, and a cape are plenty. But while he has superpowers--and confidence--aplenty ("Watch me lift the couch over my head") what he really wants is an audience ("I can FLY!!!!"), and Dad, unseen behind his newspaper, is Not Playing: ("Please don't jump on the couch.") The boy, all exuberance, is pictured in full color, his boasts in a playful red font; Dad is in plain pencil, his long-suffering rejoinders in boring Times Roman.  Kelley expertly employs the plentiful white space on each double-page spread to give the dialogue punch and the red cape plenty of room for flourishing. The ending springs a nice alliance (with Dad down to his boxers), and while I wonder if the book's message might speak more to parents than children, I thought that about No, David! and was emphatically proven wrong. R.S.

 

[This review may be distributed freely and excerpted fairly; credit to “Read Roger, The Horn Book Inc., www.hbook.com.]