Faith: Dreamside

Gr 7 Up—After being framed for murder by a group of supervillains, telekinetic, flying Faith is stuck hiding out as her alter ego. As Summer, she's a short-haired, bespectacled journalist reporting on superheroes rather than rescuing others herself. But when she witnesses a child trapped in a car wreck, she can't help but rip off her wig and glasses to save the day. Of course this puts her back in the limelight, and she must go deeper into hiding. She connects with teenage superhero Monica Jim, also known as Animalia, a shape-shifter who is similarly persecuted for crimes she didn't commit—and who is seeing ghosts of her dead friends. Faith brings her to Doctor Mirage, a famous ghost expert. But when the ghosts drag Monica into the world of the dead, Faith and Doctor Mirage team up to bring her back. Faith is a charmingly self-assured superheroine. She is unabashedly geeky, and readers in the know will delight in her references to "Harry Potter," Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek. Despite being a fangirl's fangirl, Faith is no less a daring hero. The action scenes are dynamic and engaging: particularly terrifying is Monica's abduction by ghosts. Though this is a fantastic representation of plump heroines, it's a bit disheartening that the creators have relied on the stale trope of a sidekick of color who needs rescuing by the white protagonist.