Marv and the Mega Robot
Marv and the Dino Attack
Alex Falase-Koya, illustrated by Paula Bowles
Oxford Children’s Books

This is a new series of early chapter books that star a new superhero protagonist, Marv along with his excitable sidekick, robot Pixel. One of the author’s aims in writing the series was so that children would have black superheroes in their stories, something he didn’t find when he was growing up.

Essentially Marvin is a normal boy who likes to spend his time with his empathetic Grandpa, reading comics and doing science experiments with best friend, Joe. Life is fairly normal until one day, Grandpa sends Marvin up to the attic where, stowed away in a dusty old suitcase, he finds a superhero outfit, which when he tries it on, shrinks to fit him perfectly. He soon discovers that Grandpa too was a superhero and that the suit is powered by two things: kindness and imagination; now it’s up to Marvin to take on that mantle.

In the first story supervillain Mastermind, plus her evil giant robot appear at the school science fair, it’s up to Marvin to assume his Marv role and try to save the day.

Aided and abetted by Pixel, of course the time has come for Marvin to meet his destiny.

In the second book Marvin and his friends are super excited: their class is on a school trip to The Natural History Museum. Marvin and Joe are thrilled to get right up close to their favourite dinosaur skeletons when suddenly the ground begins to shake and skeletons start to move. It’s supervillain Rex intent on causing complete dino-chaos. Marv knows he must employ those newly found superhero skills to save his classmates (and everyone else) from violent velociraptors, trampling T-Rexs and the other rampaging dino-skeletons.
Will it be another case of ‘superhero mission accomplished’ for Marv – hopefully so long as he can assume that super-suit in time.

Fizzing with excitement, and with themes of kindness, friendship, creativity, courage and resilience these two snappily-written tales are a super-duper start to Alex Falase-Koya’s action-packed series. Paula Bowles’ two-colour illustrations are terrific fun and help ramp that action right up.