Powerless by Matthew Cody is Awesome!

Forget that it's technically a YA Novel, Matthew Cody's Powerless is one of the best books I've read so far this year. It's got everything you could want in a kid's adventure story: heroes, villains, comic books, superpowers, Sherlock Holmes, meteorites, mysteries...it's loaded! Now, these are all things I like...so I might be biased, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and recommend this one. If I'm not mistaken, you can download a sample chapter from the book on Cody's site: www.matthewcody.com

I read through half of this book sitting in a bookstore cafe and by the time I left I just had to buy it. I finished it later that week and was inspired to draw up this illustration to the left based on the prologue of the book. And speaking of the book...

I'm not gonna blow the ending, but basically it's the story of a 12-year old kid named Daniel who moves to a new town only to discover that all of his new friends have secret superpowers --flight, invisibility, strength. But there's also a dark force at work in this little town that's stealing his friends' super abilities and leaving them powerless. Perhaps Daniel -- regular, old Daniel -- is their only hope.

If you have kids, maybe eight years old through thirteen, buy them this book. And when they're done with it, borrow it and read it yourself. It's fun, mysterious and everything a YA novel should be. I'm looking forward to more from Matthew Cody.

For anyone still reading, below you'll find some work-in-progress steps. First there's my original pencil sketch for the piece. After that I threw in a couple of close-ups from the image. Now stop reading my blog and go buy that book! -v