Brian Pinkney cleverly uses a comic-book style to bring to life a heroic African-American boy. On the surface, Henry is an ordinary newspaper carrier but in his imagination he is a superhero named Sparrowboy. As he delivers newspapers door to door around his neighborhood, Sparrowboy comes to the rescue of two small children being chased by a dog, a baby bird who's fallen into the path of a runaway red wagon, and a cat who's being terrorized by the neighborhood bully. And he still manages to get all of his papers delivered on time. Even though Pinkney has used the conventions of comic-strip art, the strong lines of his scratchboard illustrations make the pictures clear from a great distance so that the book can easily be shared with a large group. (Ages 4-9)