Ruthie wants to be Superman. When her mami asks her to spend the day with her pregnant Aunt Juanita, Ruthie sees the opportunity to help as a way to use her superhero strengths. Speeding out the apartment and dashing through her Puerto Rican neighborhood, Ruthie arrives breathless at her aunt’s door. “Is it time for the baby to come? Should I get help?” Ruthie eagerly inquires. It’s not time for the baby yet, but Ruthie helps Aunt Juanita by running errands at the speed of light. Flying to the bodega for another snack that her aunt is craving, Ruthie’s swiftness falters when Don Felix presents her with a box full of kittens. Ruthie loves kittens. Her aunt, the errand, and Superman are forgotten—Ruthie is smitten. She is so absorbed with their cuteness that Ruthie fails to realize that an ambulance has arrived to take Aunt Juanita to have her baby. Later, a dejected Ruthie realizes she has not saved the day after all. But at the welcome home party, her aunt announces that it was the coquito (coconut ice) delivered by Ruthie that made the baby finally come, and Ruthie goes from feeling like a zero to feeling like a hero, especially when she is the first at the party who gets to hold the new baby. Warm watercolor and pen-and-ink drawings illustrate a sensitive and funny story about what it takes to be a superhero. (Ages 3–7)

Ruthie loves Superman.
Ruthie wants to be Superman.

And when Ruthie is asked to go spend the afternoon with her aunt, who is about to have a baby any day day now and may need some help., Ruthie seizes the opportunity. It could be her chance to be a hero, should the baby come while she's visiting! But when Ruthie is out fetching a snack for her aunt, she gets so distracted by a box full of kittens in the bodega that she doesn't hear her aunt calling for her, nor does she notice the policemen running to the apartment or the ambulance pulling to the curb. When she realizes what's happened, she's devastated -- she's missed her one chance to be a hero! Or has she?

Sonia Manzano, best known as "Maria" on Sesame Street, once again captures the warmth, love, and adventures of her childhood Bronx neighborhood.