[As an experiment last fall, I invited self-publishers to submit their best new titles for review. About a dozen heeded the call, and I am reviewing their books in this space.]

A Cape!; written and illustrated by Marty Kelley. Marty Kelley, 2014. 32.pp. ISBN 978-0-692-22596. 16.95.

Who needs pants? Not the superhero of this story, for whom briefs, sneakers, and a cape are plenty. But while he has superpowers–and confidence–aplenty (“Watch me lift the couch over my head”) what he really wants is an audience (“I can FLY!!!!”), and Dad, unseen behind his newspaper, is Not Playing: (“Please don’t jump on the couch.”) The boy, all exuberance, is pictured in full color, his boasts in a playful red font; Dad is in plain pencil, his long-suffering rejoinders in boring Times Roman.  Kelley expertly employs the plentiful white space on each double-page spread to give the dialogue punch and the red cape plenty of room for flourishing. The ending springs a nice alliance (with Dad down to his boxers), and while I wonder if the book’s message might speak more to parents than children, I thought that about No, David! and was emphatically proven wrong. R.S.