y Dustin Cabeal

The Big Book of Girl Power is essentially an encyclopedia of female characters in the DC Universe. Gives their origins, powers and occasionally their main villain. It is targeted towards children and it’s almost perfect in that regard.

As wonderful as the packaging is, it’s not a very long book. Given how many female characters DC Comics owns, it would have been nice to see the book introduce characters that haven’t made it out to some other form of media. For the most part, the characters in the book have all appeared in cartoons and movies, which is why they were chosen.

The only real downer of this book is that the interior art is strange. I don’t want to say that it’s bad because it technically isn’t. It’s just that they’re clearly going for a silver age look for the book which is a terrible direction to go. I assume the book’s goal is to get children to A) be aware of these characters when they appear in other media and B) get them to read comics. They succeed with part A but fail with part B.

The reason being, that none of the art echoes modern comics. Even the costumes are Silver Age in design, and none of them are being used in the comics, in any form. How is a child then supposed to like Supergirl, pick up Supergirl and find an entirely different Supergirl? The art, while enjoyable because it’s a throwback, is the wrong choice for this book.

For me, this book isn’t for kids. It’s for parents that want to show their children comics and more specifically superhero comics and perhaps what they grew up with… the problem is, if you grew up during the Silver Age of comics, you’re probably done having kids. I grew in the Bronze Age, and I’m done having kids.

I would still give this to a kid to read. Regardless of gender, it’s a safe and friendly book for a child to check out. Maybe you’ve realized that comics haven’t been for kids for about fifty years now, but thanks to TV and movie’s your little tike loves the superheroes. The Big Book of Girl Power is an easy and quick read, but also one that they’ll likely read once or twice and be done with.

Score: 3/5

The Big Book of Girl Power
By: Julie Merberg
Publisher: Downtown Bookworks