The Unsuper Adventures of Norma by Mark Svartz

The Unsuper Adventures of Norma by Mark Svartz
Publisher:  Carpathian Press
Format:  Ebook via Netgalley
Number of pages:  188
Publishing:   August 29th, 2023
Source:  Author in exchange for an honest review

Norma lives in Superton, a town where everyone has superpowers.  Everyone, well except for Norma.  For some unknown reason she's the only one who was born "normal."  Norma has never come in first in any contest, she can't fly or win at a spelling bee.  Plus living in a town full of people with superpowers makes it really difficult to stand out.  So, Norma spends a lot of time in her bedroom with her goldfish Sushi, inventing awesome things like Smellivision Scented Glasses and The Universole Shoe.  But then on one Tuesday afternoon, everything changed.  Cam found this weird flashing red button and after he pushed it this huge swirly whirlpool appeared, and it vacuumed up all of people of Superton's superpowers.  Claire Voyant could no longer see the future, and even Pogo wasn't able to jump very high.  And then the worst thing happened, an evil alien from outer space appeared named Lord Fartron and told everyone he was going to detonate a massive stinkbomb called the Megapoot and destroy the entire universe.  Well, let's just say that the news was devastating to the people of Superton.  But you see, Norma was the only one who was kind of excited about the whole situation.  Because well, everyone was normal just like her for once.  So, while the town went through the seven stages of grief, Norma took the opportunity to finally get to know the other kids at school and they got to know her.  Norma even got an invitation to join the Order of the Secret Bones and she got involved in their plan to bring down Lord Fartron and return everyone's superpowers.  In the end Norma was instrumental in saving the town, illustrating that you don't have to have superpowers to make a difference.  

The Unsuper Adventures of Norma engages the reader in its silliness, full color illustrations and creative characters superpowers.   There's Cam the Chameleon, Claire Voyant, Flrrrrp who can mimic any sound, and Pete and RePete who can create an infinite number of versions of themselves.   Believe it or not there's even a giant talking butt who humorously flaps his cheeks when he talks and strangely enough has a fartbomb that can destroy the universe.  Yep, slightly silly but doesn't contain the butt humor or jokes that say you'd find in something like The Adventures of Captain Underpants.  Despite not being the target audience for this book, I did find that I enjoyed it.  I liked the lists that the kids created and the way that they split up into teams.  One group finding out more about Lord Fartron and the bootyburp colony he was supposed to be from, another researching the giant whirlpool, trying to find links to other places that have had their superpowers stolen and finally researching the Megapoot bomb.  I also really liked Norma who despite not having any superpowers, proved to be the most beneficial in coming up with a plan to save the town.  I loved her creative inventions and ideas.  How she finally could relate to everyone on a human level, and how she even found common likes and dislikes with her classmates.  If you want to take a peek inside, the author has a few sample pages on his website HERE  .  There's also a wonderful author interview at Smack Dab in the Middle.