Superdads!: ­Animal Heroes

K-Gr 4–The writing and illustrating team who created Supermoms! is back, this time highlighting the amazing dads in the animal kingdom. Presented in a comic-panel format with humorous speech bubble comments by the animals, this is a highly engaging nonfiction read for all ages. The superdads are first shown in shadow outlines so readers can guess which animals will be in the book. Children will enjoy returning to these pages after reading the book to match the shadows. After these outlines of animals, the text covers how some dads help with raising babies, then which ones protect their young, and finally which dads play with their babies to teach them important skills. The book ends with a summary of all the animals covered, giving each one a special name (the giant water bug is “super athletic” because of the pushups he performs to keep oxygen flowing over the eggs he carries on his back). Back matter also includes recommendations of other books, websites, and audiovisual resources. This is not the book to turn to for an animal research project as there is not enough information for each animal, but readers will enjoy learning about a wide variety of animals and how animal dads care for their young.