Dylan Spencer has always dreamed of becoming a superhero. What eight-year-old hasn’t, right? The difference is that in Dylan’s world, all superheroes are children… and that includes Dylan’s brother and sister Sam and Millie (aka Arctic Thunder and Millie Monday). It’s a fact that they like to remind Dylan of at every given opportunity (although in Millie’s case only on a Monday as that’s the only day her heat vision works). Yeah, Dylan has always dreamed of becoming a superhero, but not just so he could stop bad guys and rescue cats from trees (what self-respecting superhero would do that?) but also so he can shut his super siblings up.
Then, one day – three months after Dylan inherited Sam’s pet iguana, Tumbler – the unimaginable happened. It happened. Dylan discovered his superpower! But it wasn’t the ability to fly, super strength or blow icy cold breath. No. After a lifetime of waiting, Dylan discovered that he could… understand iguanas. He could talk to them too, and no sooner had he discovered that Tumbler’s name was, in fact, Paul (a very popular name for iguanas), the two of them began to figure out how to turn a somewhat dodgy super power into something worthy of Arctic Thunder and Millie Monday’s respect. It may not be the best plan in the world, but it might just work – and if it didn’t, Dylan would be suffering his brother’s super strength fuzzy wuzzlers until the end of time.
It’s not often that you come across a children’s book with a voice as strong as Bishop’s unique spin on the super kids genre. His quippy conversational style of writing is perfect for parents reading to their younger kids and smart enough to keep young readers interested on their own. Dylan and Paul make a great double act, perfectly bouncing off each other as they navigate the unorthodox world of superheroes vs super villains on their journey to becoming bonafide members of the Superhero Collective while coping with all the trails that kids and small reptiles have to deal with.
Providing the perfect sidekick to Bishop’s text is Rikin Parekh’s fun and quirky illustrations. One part Quentin Blake and one part Dr Seuss, Parekh’s depictions of Bishop’s crazy world are perfectly in tune with the voice and feel of the story and really help bring the story of Iguana Boy to life.
If Iguana Boy is lacking in anything it’s on the action front. Given the genre, there’s not as much POW and ZOOM as you might expect from a Superhero book. That said, the humor takes this first chapter (and I hope there’ll be many more) up, up and away, far beyond many of its contemporaries. Of all the child superheroes on the bookshelf, if I was a cat stuck up a tree, I’d definitely want Dylan (sorry, Iguana Boy) to rescue me. Let’s face it, nobody else would.
IGUANA BOY SAVES THE WORLD WITH A TRIPLE CHEESE PIZZA / AUTHOR: JAMES BISHOP / ILLUSTRATOR: RIKIN PAREKH / PUBLISHER: HODDER CHILDREN’S BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 19TH
