Super Milly and the Super School Day

Super Milly and the Super School Day follows a girl called Milly, whose school is having a superhero day. She is very excited to show off her costume and superpowers to all of her classmates. The only problem is, she doesn't have any superpowers. However, as the school day progresses, Milly starts realising that she can save the day in a variety of different ways and situations, all in an effort to help other children.

Milly soon comes to realise that she does have superpowers: qualities she demonstrates such as being super brave and super kind and super funny, just to name a few, in which she uses to save the day.

The author and illustrator - Stephanie Clarkson and Gwen Millward - have worked well together to bring a brilliant storyline to life through accessible language, great use of text positioning within the pages and fantastic illustrations of characters and expressions in which the reader can easily relate to. I like how, at the end of the book, the author makes the reader think about superpowers of their own.

This book might be good to use with children who have low self-esteem. It could be a good pick-me-up for some of those children who see others doing things that seem impossible. It is a fantastic reminder that everyone has 'powers'. Furthermore, to portray them as qualities such as kindness is a lovely message to send to children.

My kids both enjoyed this story, although it did, unfortunately, lead to a household shortage of tinfoil and Sellotape in our attempts to create our own superhero outfits... I haven't read any other books by this author however, I will definitely look out for them from now on. I would recommend this book for children from three years up.

Picture book / Reviewed by James Hewish, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 3+