High Voltage! (Marvel: Spider-Man)

by Frank Berrios, Andrea Cagol (Illustrator), Francesco Legramandi (Illustrator)

When the electrically charged villain Electro strikes, only the wall-crawling Amazing Spider-Man can stop him! Boys and girls ages 2 to 5 will love this web-slinging Little Golden Book.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books

24 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

I was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, Queens, and the Bronx. As a New York kid, I remember riding graffiti-covered subways and hearing hip-hop blaring from parks and passing cars on the street. I loved my city. It was always buzzing with activity and different things for kids to see and do.

But I also loved to just sit and read. It started with daily comic strips like Peanuts by Charles Schulz. Then I discovered Mad Magazine and superhero comics like Batman, Spider-Man and Black Panther. These stories dealt with heroes and villains, innocence and guilt, freedom and justice. I became interested in justice and the legal system and was encouraged to become a lawyer. I had enjoyed working with kids as a counselor at a summer day camp, so I also thought about being a teacher. But after graduating from college, I knew that being a lawyer or a teacher just wasn’t right for me.

I found a temp job at DC Comics in midtown Manhattan. I answered phones, sorted mail, and did other small jobs. It wasn’t creative work, but I met cool people and got lots of free comics. That led to a full-time job in the Editorial Department. I went from reading comic books for fun, to working with legends in the comic book industry. Before long, I moved from DC Comics to Random House Children’s Books, where I’ve worked on a wide variety of Disney and Nickelodeon books over the last twenty years.

I’ve also written several Little Golden Books, including Black Panther, The Amazing Spider-Man, Falcon, Miles Morales: Spider-Man, I Am Captain Kirk and Too Many Tribbles! as well as My Little Golden Book about Jackie Robinson, Football with Dad and Soccer with Mom.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 'shocking' spidey adventure!

[Andrew Ives · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering this is a children's book, illustrated by non-Marvel artists and a world away from Jack Kirby's style, they have done a wonderful job of capturing the look and dynamism of the comics. It may only take an adult a few minutes to read this, but it's action-packed enough to hold a child's interest, long enough to teach them to read and succinct as a story. I see that Treasure Cove also list Spiderman vs Vulture and Spiderman vs Green Goblin as other books in the range. Electro was my favourite of Spidey's adversaries back in the 1980s so, silly as it all may be, I rather enjoyed this. 4.25/5

[Alayna Eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun story about Spider-man up against one of his arch nemesis

[Kathryn (Dragon Bite Books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog, Nine Pages .

Now I know that part of Spidey’s appeal is his propensity for awful puns (and I’m no huge fan of his, though I enjoyed—at least mildly—the first two Tobey Maguire movies; I’ve not seen any of the others put out by Marvel), but this story feels like a string of awful puns loosely tied by a plot, where of course, the hero had to triumph over a villain with a ridiculous name and ridiculous outfit. It seemed like poor writing, though I know it to be catering to a particular gimmick. I also had to explain how Spidey had defeated the villain, giving a quick (and I’m sure poor) lesson in the conductive properties of water. Now I suppose one could use that to her advantage if she knew about the story time in advance and set up a pretty nifty though probably pretty dangerous science experiment, but I was anything but prepared for this story hour.