Superhero Joe

Joe "used to be scared of everything." At night, his bedroom closet seems to overflow with menacing items, including ravenous-looking gym shoes and a cobralike belt. But then he realizes that clothes could make the man and creates a superhero outfit to give himself courage. Attired in a "Cape of Confidence" (a bath towel), a "Torch of Radiance" (a flashlight), a bike helmet, and other accoutrements of invincibility, even the spooky basement doesn't faze him%E2%80%94he retrieves a mop for his mother and saves the kitchen floor from motor oil peril. Barrett's (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) terrific pictures, with their crisp outlines, yellow-orange hues, dramatic lighting, and cross-hatching, hearken back to the comic book art of the 1950s; Joe goes from a 67-lb. weakling to a dynamo capable of wide-legged poses worthy of any action figure. Unfortunately, Weitzman's (You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum) self-esteem message is a bit heavy-handed ("Now I know the light switch to the basement is just at the bottom of the stairs"), and Joe's imaginative conceit gets neutralized in the book's final pages. Ages 4%E2%80%938. (Sept.)