Leon the Extraordinary, graphic novel gold for elementary ages

It’s a world where people with super abilities are common and Leon is just an average kid. Holy metaphors and feelings of life that any elementary school kid can agree with Batman! Leon the Extraordinary is a graphic novel that knows its audience. It has all of the feels, frustrations, and relevance that elementary school kids will understand. The hall monitor is bossy and bigger than life, the teachers are a little bit weird, the school bullies are much bigger than them, and he just wishes that he was a little bit more super.

Everyone around Leon seems to be able to do things better, faster, and more efficiently, in addition to making things look cool while doing them. Leon does laundry. He wears a green cape with oversized green gloves that make him look like he’s handling radioactive material. On the way to school one day, his bus gets grabbed by a carnivorous plant that’s as tall as a skyscraper. A couple of superheroes happen to be in the area and are twiddling their thumbs to see who should save the students. They’re all hesitant because of the small talk that they’re making deciding which powers would work best and bemoaning that nobody is filming the event for social media.

When the plant is about to consume the kids, its tendrils’ are severed, the bus is picked up and safely delivered to the school. Leon immediately knows that it has to be Ms. Magnificent because she’s the only super who has the strength to be simultaneously able to fly and pick up the bus. The school has plenty of characters that fit the bill for an all-age graphic novel’s rogues’ gallery. There are people with one eye, a bully with two heads, and classmates who look like they’re from a different planet.

Clementine is a shapeshifter, a know-it-all who’s in charge of the hall monitors. She’s the bane of Leon’s existence, that is until real danger rears its head. His mother is an entrepreneur who caters for parties and raises her son right. However, Leon notices that strange things are amiss. People are becoming zombies, they’re also on their cell phones more and becoming even more zombified when they look at their devices. Could the two things be related? Can Leon’s superhero gadgets get any more mundane than bricks that are stuck together with gum? Will he survive Clementine’s birthday party that his mom is catering?

If you’re reading the plot for Leon the Extraordinary and rolling your eyes about the cell phones turning folks into zombie plotline then this is not for you. This is an early reader graphic novel that’s going to have the sweet spot of second through fifth grade. It might skew a little bit older than that, but they would be the exception and not the core audience that’s intended. This is manic, fast-paced graphic novel fun that those ages will read once, look at the art some more, re-read parts of it, and then tell their friends how great it is. There’s enough friendship and family to teach a lesson, but not be preachy.

Leon makes mistakes, misjudges people, and sometimes has his head in the clouds. That’s any elementary school student and this is a graphic novel that any of them will be able to pick up and identify something with about it. The bright illustrations are big and loaded with action.

Leon the Extraordinary is also thick. It’s a graphic novel with 261 pages of confidence that those young readers will dive into as they practice reading via the guidance of a graphic novel. If they’re in middle elementary school then they’ll be able to read it themselves, but still enjoy the action and grin at the lessons that they thought they knew. This is the start of a lovely graphic novel series that ages six through eleven years old want and their parents know what they need.

Leon the Extraordinary is by Jamar Nicholas with color by Bonaia Rosado and is available on Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Publishing.

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