Being a hero is hard, but it is even harder when you are a mini hero as Life as a Mini Hero shows. Olivier Tallec shows the reader all the emotions, situations and issues heroes have to deal with. Tallec tells how humble a hero is, how adored and how much they are needed. And the illustrations show how all of this unfolds (and sometimes the words and art do not always show the same things). This is a book about emotions and what kids go through. Of course, the super hero aspect is to show how special the children are.
And that is it. This book is not overly special. We have seen the story before. Many times. And the artwork, while cute, has nothing special about it either. It is cartoon characters in minimal details in an almost graphic novel format. The size also is unremarkable as being smaller than the usual picture book size. There is little color, but where there is any, it is muted or obvious. The only thing that might be interesting is the characters the kids pretend to be (a mix of known from multiple universes). Sometimes these characters are interpreted in a unique way, but again, nothing new. Yet, if you like Tallec’s illustrations, this is classic Tallec.
Perhaps the issue I have is that it is a translation by Claudia Zoe Bedrick. Not to say they are a bad translator, or that translations are bad, I just find some translations never “click” for me. And this was one of those. Plus, browsing Tallec’s other work, I have found that their style and my tastes do not always mesh.