Supergirl at Super Hero High by Lisa Yee

Information

Goodreads: Supergirl at Superhero High
Series: DC Superhero Girls #2
Source: Library
Published: March 2017

Official Summary

Get your cape on with the DC Super Hero Girls™—the unprecedented new Super Hero universe especially for girls! Readers of all ages can fly high with the all-new adventures of Wonder Woman™, Supergirl™, Batgirl™, and some of the world’s most iconic female super heroes as high schoolers!

Supergirl is the new girl in school—and she just also happens to be the most powerful teenager in the galaxy!

After losing her home planet of Krypton and everyone she knows, Supergirl has made a new home on Earth, but she’s isn’t so sure that Super Hero High School is the right place for her. Wonder Woman, other new friends, and a kindly librarian make her feel welcome, but breached inter-dimensional portals, invading alien armies, and bad dreams shake her confidence. It’s not easy being a super hero and a high school student all at once!

Review

The DC Superhero Girls series is a collaboration between DC and Random House that introduces young readers to some of DC’s most popular superheroines—who are all teenagers attending Super Hero High together!  (You can read Krysta’s review of the first novel, which features multiple protagonists instead of focusing on just one, here.)  Considering I am a fan of both superheroes and middle grade novels that imagine classic characters in school together (such as the Grimmtastic Girls series, featuring fairy tale characters at school), I assumed these books would be right up my alley.  I was not disappointed.

Although Wonder Woman’s novel come before Supergirl’s, I haven’t read it and did not find that to be a problem.  Though the novel references some minor details I assume were introduced previously, the book functions primarily as a standalone.  Even better, Supergirl is entering Super Hero High as a new student in the middle of term—so some of the basics of how the school functions are helpfully explained to both her and the reader.

Supergirl in this series is characterized as friendly and eager to learn, but also nervous about fitting in and incredibly clumsy.  There were some times I felt as those the author were hitting me over the head with Supergirl’s concerns and I kind of wanted to shout, “I get it!  She doesn’t believe in herself!”  Overall, however, I thought she was a realistic character, and I think many readers will be able to relate to her conflict between wanting to excel while worrying she won’t be able to.

Other superheroines round out the cast, and readers get a good sense of their personalities, as well.  The author also sneaks in a few “mean girls,” not a small feat since these characters do all seem to consider themselves heroes and not villains.  (It’s worth noting that boys also attend this school, which was not immediately apparent to me from the marketing.  They also have distinct personalities and do make reappearances, though they tend to be more minor characters than the girls.  There’s also not really any focus on romance.)

I do wish that this series came with some illustrations in the novels.  I do like that all the pages have cool comic book dot designs on the edges, and I understand that these are novels and not graphic novels.  Yet something about superhero-inspired story does seem as if it would lend itself to at least a few sketches at the beginning of chapters, particularly because the author’s descriptions of what certain heroes look like or what they are wearing are often awkward and hard to envision if you are not already familiar with the characters.  I love the cover art and would have been very pleased to see the author do a bit more work for the inside of the books.

A fun read recommended for those who enjoy superheroines or young readers who might be meeting them for the first time.