Captain Awesome Meets Super Dude!

Stan Kirby's Captain Awesome Meets Super Dude is a giggly superhero story for 5 year olds about a boy who might finally get to shake hands with his all-time hero.

What happens

Eugene McGillicudy is secretly Captain Awesome. With his best friends Charlie and Sally (Nacho Cheese Man and Supersonic Sal) he's the Sunnyview Superhero Squad. And everything they do comes from Super Dude, star of the comics, the cartoons and the films.

It opens at the cinema, with Super Dude flattening an evil robot broccoli in 3-D. On the way out Eugene says the thing he's always wanted. Wouldn't it be awesome to meet Super Dude just once?

Then Sunnyview goes villain crazy. A big drooly dog is waiting on the drive. Norm pops round about the football team (he's the Whistleblower, obviously). At the supermarket there's a lady dressed head to toe in orange, squeezing the oranges, and you can probably guess what Eugene decides she is.

So when Mum announces a Super Dude party at the comic shop, with a possible visit from the man himself, Eugene puts it all together. The villains are ganging up for one giant showdown!

At the party there's a bigger worry. This Super Dude looks EXACTLY right. But is he the real one? The Squad set him three tests, starting with a quick-fire quiz on his old battles and ending with whether he can save the world before Mum has to go and buy nappies.

The fun is that nothing is ever quite as evil as Eugene thinks. A toy bunny staring at him over dinner gets shut in the fridge. A very pink pop concert becomes the end of the world. The grown-ups just carry on calmly around him.

It's all told in big comic-book style too. BAM! POW! BACKPACK! UNZIP! CAPE! The noises get lines of their own and Eugene's thoughts burst into the middle of the action, so it's brilliant to read out loud.

Plenty of familiar Sunnyview faces turn up, which makes it a real treat if your reader has already met a few of these villains. Anyone new still gets Super Dude and the Squad explained near the start. Meredith Mooney is still calling them Puke-Gene and Stinky Cheese Man, mind, so you may hear that at home.

There's a sweet bit too, when Super Dude is lovely to Meredith and tells the Squad why kindness counts as a superpower.

What to read next

If they'd like more of Eugene trying to be just like his hero, Captain Awesome Goes to Superhero Camp packs the whole Squad off to Camp Ka-Pow for lasers, lassos and proper superhero training.