Murph Cooper has just moved with his mum and big brother… again! It wasn’t so bad the first time, the second was okay, but this is ridiculous. Surely Mum can find a job that lasts more than a year!

This time, finding a school for Murph is also a problem. There are no spaces anywhere. Murph never thought he’d be envious of his big brother going to school. Stumbling by chance on a place called The School, Murph’s desperate mum pleads with the principal to take her boy.

Murph wonders whether he should even bother making friends after he has moved so often lately, but The School and its pupils soon take his mind off his worries. First of all, the classes are weird. His CT class (Murph has no idea what CT stands for) has a muscled, moustached teacher that acts more like a Sergeant Major. The students gain praise or scorn from Mr Flash, for (what looks like to Murph -) staring at a TV, or looking out a window. What?

Sure there is Maths and other subjects but the ones in between are strange. Everyone keeps talking about Capes. He’s been watching for them, wondering if wearing one is part of this strange school, but hasn’t seen any hanging up outside classrooms.

Capes, he learns are Capabilities. Flying, X-Ray Vision, Being Invisible – all standard Super hero stuff. The School is for those with outstanding capabilities and Mr Flash is there to help develop them. He’d love students with standard, or what he calls useful capes. He doesn’t consider being able to inflate your own body parts, conjure up two tiny horses at will, or fly by umbrella useful at all. When he discovers Murph has an even worse super power, actually none at all, Murph is given a new name. Kid Normal.

Meanwhile across town… Ribbon Industries is working on top secret stuff. Its top scientist, under threat of the sack, throws all caution out the window to speed up experiment results. What results however is Nektar – half man, half wasp, and the desire to ruin all picnics forever! His new smooth assistant Nicholas Knox has other ideas – really clever ones in fact that involve much, much more than picnics.

On the most important day of The School year (tryouts for the Superhero Alliance), Nektar and The School meet. Mr Flash and his top students are soon useless, and it’s Murph and his friends, (dubbed the Superzeroes by other students) who discover their combined capes might be useful after all.

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize – Kid Normal is hilarious. Fans of David Walliams’ early stories (minus the silly) will enjoy this story which is the first book in a series about the Superzeroes. There are surprising reveals, an evil (but increasingly stupid) villain to defeat, a cool school caretaker (instead of the often creepy kind) and life long friendships to be made.

I laughed out loud, oooed in places and cried, “No way!” in another. I’ll be grabbing more books in this series for sure.

Authors – Chris Smith & Greg James

Illustrator – Erica Salcedo

Age – 7+

Teacher’s Notes here

Read the rest of the series (Click on a cover to learn more)

(2017, Scholastic, Humour, Action, Adventure, School, Friendship, Secret, Bullies, Courage, Funny, Robots, Superheroes, Superpowers, Mutant wasp man, Freakizoid, Good vs Evil, James Bond, Gadgets, Series, Laugh)