Title: Superbat
Author and illustrator: Matt Carr
Publisher: Scholastic

Teacher review

Pat the bat decides he wants to be special like the superheroes in his comic books. He borrows his mum’s sewing machine and makes a “Superbat” costume.

His friends snort with laughter when he explains that his superpowers are super-hearing, echo-location and the ability to fly - “That’s nothing special, we can all do that, too,” they shout. Crestfallen Pat no longer feels special, and decides to give up the superhero business and accept he is just a normal bat.

Suddenly he hears a cry from across the city. Big Bad Cat has cornered a terrified family of mice. Pat bravely saves them from the mean moggy, and discovers that he does have a superpower after all: courage.  “You truly are a Superbat!” shout his friends.

I read this book to five classes, ranging from Reception to Year 2, and the children all enjoyed it. The main strength of the book is its fantastic illustrations. Matt Carr uses bold, bright colours to give the book the feel of a simplified comic. The illustrations are very striking and held the children’s attention. The fact that they are big and simple makes it work well in class story time.

The message of the book is that we don’t need to have superpowers to be special. As one child said to me: “Even if we don’t think we are special, we are special.” This important message is delivered with a light touch and plenty of humour.

At the end of the book is a Batty Facts section, which the children enjoyed discussing. We learned that there are over 1,000 types of bat, that bats, on average, live for over 20 years and about the workings of echo-location. It was lovely to have a story book which also threw in some facts.

Curriculum links

I discussed with a number of teachers how they would use the book in their teaching. We felt that it would be a nice introduction to the topic of sound for Year 4 children. The concept of echo-location is clearly explained, and even key stage 1 children quickly grasped from the clear illustrations that sound travels in waves.

Also the book would be nice to use in a topic on nocturnal creatures. Great fun is made of the fact that Pat sleeps during the day: “Keep the noise down - it’s one o’clock in the afternoon!” shouts his mother.

The book would also be useful to support teaching for PSHE. There is a strong message that we are all capable of doing amazing things and every one of us is special. We’re a church school, and there were strong links with our religion curriculum. It would especially help the children to understand that they are special within their family and their community.

Sarah Ormes is school librarian at St John’s Catholic Primary School, in Bath

Pupil reviews

Some of the comments from our children were:

“It was a bit boring, but I liked the pictures.”

“I like vampire bats - they drink blood.”

“Bats are amazing - they use clicks to see.”

“He didn’t think he was special but he was.”

“I liked it - it made me laugh. He was funny and wore a costume. His friends were mean but liked him in the end.”

If you or your class would like to write a review for Tes, please contact Adi Bloom on adi.bloom@tesglobal.com.

Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and like Tes on Facebook.