Spider-Man Little Golden Book Library (Marvel): Spider-Man!; Trapped by the Green Goblin; The Big Freeze!; High Voltage!; Night of the Vulture!

by Frank Berrios

Spider-Man saves the day again and again in this handsome boxed set of five favorite Little Golden Books!

Join Marvel's Spider-Man on his heroic adventures in this boxed set that includes five Marvel Little Golden Books: Spider-Man!; Trapped by the Green Goblin; The Big Freeze!; High Voltage!; and Night of the Vulture! It's the perfect gift for boys and girls ages 2 to 5 and an awesome way to introduce them to the world of Marvel Super Heroes and villains.

120 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2017

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

[Laura Gonyon]

I just read “The Big Freeze” from this collection to a young client of mine, who is of the target age for the book, and upon reflection noticed some worrisome aspects. First, as I read the book, one, potentially superfluous, mistake jumped out at me. The villains of the story, referred to as the “Ice Giants”, were clearly the blue-skinned Jotnar from Norse mythology, but the book claimed they came from Asgard. While reading this to a child, I came to this part and said, aloud, “No, that’s not right. They’re from Jottenheim.”

More importantly, the main issues of the book, appeared to me upon recounting the story to a friend. Then I realized this book demonstrates to young children how to discriminate good versus bad by skin tone alone. Yes, I am aware the human races does not consist of people with blue skin, but the basic suggestion is there. The “Ice Giants”, only described in the book as being from a foreign place with one main identifying factor being their difference in skin color, are put in the role of “bad”. The superhero’s use this color discrimination to identify them by the color of their skin, defeat them, and end up the victors.

I’m conclusion, I will never read this book to another child again, and I hope others consider doing the same. Teaching this kind of blatant, superficial, and divisive discrimination based on skin tone at a young age is not how we should not be raising and educating the next generations.