SuperJoe Does Not Do Cuddles
Michael Catchpool and Emma Proctor
Lantana Publishing

Life as a young superhero able to do pretty much anything is hard work, that’s the conviction of SuperJoe; he’s equally sure though that superheroes don’t do cuddles – even from their mums. Well, let’s see …

Despite having to wear his scarf (Mum insists on that), in just one day SuperJoe rescues tourists from a ferocious and very hungry tiger, (that’s before tea);

stops a runaway train, (that’s before bath time) and saves people crossing a collapsing bridge over a raging river in the depths of the jungle (just before bed),

each of these potential calamities being engineered by his arch nemesis, the Grey Shadow.

Before he sets out on each undertaking, our young superhero evades his Mum’s attempts to get a cuddle although at her behest, he does have to don a vest, a belt to keep up his superhero shorts and, that scarf.

Come bedtime however, a sleepless Joe, having eschewed a warm drink, decides that there is just one thing that he really, really needs, something he must never let Grey Shadow know about…

What a lovely story of independent thinking, the power of the imagination and maternal love, this gently humorous book will delight young would-be superheroes as well as their parents/carers. Emma Proctor’s illustrations wittily and cleverly complement Michael Catchpool’s telling, showing for instance, the uses to which SuperJoe puts the items his mum insists he ‘wears’, and those double bedtime scenes reveal much too.