Horn Book

Jerry Siegel imagines a hero, an alien with incredible strength whose secret identity is an ordinary guy. Jerry's look-alike friend Joe Shuster illustrates. MacDonald's retro images show the friends sporting matching glasses and button-down shirts, fitting right into the circa-1930s world. Nobleman's author's note continues the story and explores the business side of comics. Budding cartoonists will be inspired. Bib.

Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Starred Review Though rich in thrilling big breaks and cultural touchstones, comic-book history appears most often in books for adults, such as Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), inspired by the story of Superman's creators. This book brings the young men behind the Man of Steel to a picture-book audience. Along with a compressed account of the partnership between nerdy high-school outcasts Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, Nobleman includes insights about superheroes' cultural significance and the chord struck by Superman "hero who would always come home" even as World War II loomed on the horizon. It's hard to imagine a better sidekick for the text than MacDonald's illustrations, which capture the look of 1930s comics with their sepia-toned, stylized imagery, although some children may wish for more distinctions between Shuster and Siegel's bespectacled faces. The narrative ends on an upbeat note, but the detailed, candid afterword clues youngsters into the creators' bitter compensation battle with DC Comics. A bibliography and assurances that "all dialogue was excerpted from interviews" puts factual muscle on the narrative. Any kid who has scribbled caped crusaders in the margins of homework will find Shuster and Siegel's accomplishment of interest; this robust treatment does their story justice.

School Library Journal (Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Gr 4-6 Nobleman portrays teenaged Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster as outcasts who found solace in the world of pulp magazines and comics. Their peers did not understand their fascination with tales of musclemen and detectives with gadgets, and their teachers deemed the stories that they loved to write and illustrate "trash." Despite these obstacles, the two friends continued writing and illustrating, and in 1934, Siegel had an avalanche of ideas about a new type of hero that he then shared with Shuster, who drew the first concept illustrations of Superman. It took another four years, however, before the superhero would make his public debut in Action Comics MacDonald's illustrations are a tribute to 1930s pulp art, from the lines of the characters outlined in brown to the washes of yellow in the background. While the layout remains primarily in picture-book format, comic-book elements appear sporadically, such as with phrases separated from the rest of the text and placed in oval bubbles. One spread also uses panels to depict Siegel's thoughts as he conceptualized Superman. The story ends with the young men successfully landing a publisher. The afterword fills in more of the details, including Siegel and Shuster's long-running battle with DC Comics for a greater share of the profits, how their Jewish background affected Superman during World War II, and their final years. Boys of Steel is a solid introduction to the history of Superman's creation, especially for children who find an outlet in storytelling and art. Kim T. Ha, Elkridge Branch Library, MD

Starred Review for Publishers Weekly

Catering to comics junkies, this vibrant and well-researched picture book biography introduces the youthful inventors of Superman, who this year celebrates his 70th anniversary. Writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster are mild-mannered everymen whose reflective glasses conceal their eyes—and their potential. In a crowded high school hallway, Jerry wishes he could be with his “friends,” and a turn of the page reveals Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Joe, “lousy at sports and mousy around girls,” draws sci-fi heroes with a passion. In 1934, when both are 20, Jerry dreams up the Superman concept and Joe draws prototypes labeled “S” for “ 'super.' And for 'Siegel' and 'Shuster.' ” In June 1938, their creation launches in <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Action Comics. Nobleman details this achievement with a zest amplified by MacDonald's (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Another Perfect Day) punchy illustrations, done in a classic litho palette of brassy gold, antique blue and fireplug red. MacDonald's Depression-era vignettes picture Siegel pondering his superhero's powers and the friends casting a single, caped shadow. A cautionary afterword chronicles their protracted financial struggles with DC Comics—when Siegel and Shuster sold their first Superman story, they also sold all rights to the character, for $130. Ages 10–up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(July)

Kirkus Reviews

Ask children where the Man of Steel comes from, and they may answer "Metropolis" or, if they're well read, "Krypton." In fact, he came from Cleveland, the invention of two "meek, mild and myopic" Depression-era teenagers. Drawing incidents and dialogue directly from a range of published interviews and other accounts, Nobleman shows how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster parlayed a steady diet of Tarzan, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon into a new kind of Hero, with superhuman abilities and a secret identity not so different from, well, themselves. Tongue resolutely in cheek, MacDonald switches between full page and comics-style panels, portraying the young writer and artist in Superman-style poses—stooped and nerdy by day but standing solidly, hands on hips and looking larger-than-life when working on their creation. In his afterword, Nobleman retraces Superman's role in World War II and beyond, filling in the sorry tale of how Siegel and Shuster were cheated of fortune and fame by DC Comics. The battle for truth and justice is truly never-ending. (Picture-book biography. 7-10)