Super Enemies by Lois Wickstrom – Review by Elizabeth Sanchez

Super Enemies by Lois Wickstrom
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love most books by this author, but we didn’t love Super Enemies. I read it to my 7 year old, and my 13 year old listened in. Both said the ending didn’t make sense, and I have to agree. The story presents us two siblings who fight constantly, never agreeing on things, like many brother and sisters. They seem to fight just for the sake of fighting, which is understandable, my kids do the same. But once they got to the beach, Mira is, in the words of my 7 years old “being so rude.” Carl is doing his own thing, building a sandcastle, and Mira comes over and destroys it. When Carl stands up to her, she taunts him and runs off. It bugged me that their dad sat there and did nothing- there was no show of intervention. Carl rebuilds his castle, just to have Mira ruin it. The process repeats over and over. The dad, and now other beach visitors are shown watching the children cause a scene. There is one image that the dad is shown shaking a finger at Mira, but I feel like the story should have shown dialogue of the dad scolding or coaching Mira on her behavior. At the end, dad says its time to go, and the family walks away with smiles asking to do it again tomorrow. I feel like it ending so abruptly, and didn’t really address the rivalry and fighting. There is no moral to the story- like even though you may fight, your siblings can be your best friends. Or maybe that Mira was acting that way because she felt left out, and should use her words to ask to join. Or perhaps working together to build an even better castle. The story just seemed to end… without any reason to the story. It caught us all off guard and didn’t really make sense. I do love the illustrations- the faces are very expressive and the scenes are bright and colorful. I enjoy most of the authors books, but not this one…

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Reviewed by @way2gosmartguy