Super Rabbit Boy by Thomas Flintham

The Super Rabbit Boy comics hop between a pixelated game world and our world, where a boy called Sunny is guiding Super Rabbit Boy on his quests.

Three things I love about these books: they play with the conventions of computer games, they celebrate some of the qualities it takes to beat a game and, through the interaction between Sunny and his family members, they present an encouraging, cooperative gaming environment.

In Game Over, Super Rabbit Boy!, things don't go entirely to plan for Super Rabbit Boy on his mission to foil King Viking's evil plans. Strangely though, every time he gets eaten, sunk or crushed, he finds himself back where he was before he got into trouble. Sunny is using up Super Rabbit Boy's lives, but each time he applies what he has learned and gets his rabbit hero to progress further towards his goal. With a lot of problem-solving and a bit of determination, Sunny finally beats the game and restores order to Superfunston.

In Super Rabbit Boy Powers Up!, Super Rabbit Boy has to use power-ups that give him powers of fire, water and light to get past a series of challenging bosses. When it becomes difficult to figure out how to use these power-ups, Sunny gets help from his family. His little sister, Rue, provides a key bit of working-out and together they help Super Rabbit Boy win the day.

With these two stories in one volume, Super Rabbit Boy also presents great value for money. And when you reach the end and it's Game Over, as with any game or book, you can always press Start again.

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