Superpower Inspiration

Quotes, illustrations, poems, and more from amazing book creators about their personal superpowers!

Looking for inspiration to find your superpower? Check out the superpowers of some amazing authors and illustrators and be inspired to find yours! Explore the Superpower Challenge and share your Superpower!

Marie Lu

Marie Lu is the author of the popular Legend series, as well as the Young Elites series, the Warcross series, and Batman: Nightwalker in the DC Icons series.

“Giving people the benefit of a doubt is a habit I don’t regret. Most of us carry something precious in our hearts, something we cherish, something that might give us pain, something sad or sweet or anxious or unsure. You don’t know what that thing is, only that it is there. So I try to give others the space for that thing to exist.”

Check it out on NaNoWriMo’s social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

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Stacey Lee

Stacey Lee is the author of Under a Painted Sky and Outrun the Moon, as well as one of the founders of the non-profit organization We Need Diverse Books, a recepient of the inaugural CBC Diversity Outstanding Achievement Awards (2018).

“My superpower is the ability to think of similes and metaphors. I remember writing my sister a poem about the canker sores in her mouth which I likened to a troop of traveling troublemakers. She got mad at me. I learned to use my powers for good, not evil.”

Check it out on NaNoWriMo’s social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

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Kacen Callender

Kacen Callender is the 2020 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (King and the Dragonflies), as well as the author of other multi-award winnning titles, Hurricane Child and Queen of the Conquered.

“My superpower is love. Love is the opposite of fear. With love, I can face anything and anyone in the world, because I know that I am always worthy of unconditional love. I am love. And every human is love, and is worthy of unconditional love, also. Yes—that means you, too. You are unconditionally loved and adored by people who don’t even know you for the simple fact that you exist. I share my superpower of love through my writing, with the hope that anyone who reads my words will realize they are worthy of unconditional love, too.”

Check it out on NaNoWriMo’s social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

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Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Maggie Tokuda-Hall is the author of the Parent’s Choice Gold Medal-winning picture book, Also an Octopus, and the popular The Mermaid, The Witch and The Sea.

“My superpower is I’m great at procrastinating writing my books… it sounds like a bad thing, but here’s how it’s actually really good: when I’m not writing I read, stare out the window, listen in on other people’s conversations, go for long walks, and that gives me time to let my ideas mature. I have a million ideas for stories all the time, but the problem is making them into something big enough to be an entire book. So procrastination sounds like a joke, but it’s my superpower!”

Check out her video on NaNoWriMo’s social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

On Twitter (MTH)
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Matthew Cody

Matthew Cody is the author of several popular books, including the Supers of Noble’s Green trilogy and Cat Ninja.

“My superpowered alter ego is The Cookie Thief! His power is the ability to edge ever-closer to a plate of cookies, totally unseen. From the shadows he strikes! and when the cookies all disappear, he silently skulks away like a . . . well, like a cookie thief.”

Check it out on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

On Twitter (MC)
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Chad Thomas

Chad Thomas is an illustrator and cartoonist of TMNT Amazing Adventures and Cat Ninja.

“My superpower is that I can still think and imagine like a kid! I’ve always wanted to tell stories with my art and spent all my time drawing. I would dream up comics and heroes that I would want to share with all my friends and family and maybe someday…the world! Holding on to that creativity has allowed me to help create some amazing adventures for all ages!”

Check it out on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

On Twitter (CT)
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Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds, current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and author of Look Both Ways.

“My superpower is… finding the superpower in others. I’m like the superhero doctor.”

Check out his video on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Carin Berger

Carin Berger, 2020 Children’s Book Week poster creator and author/illustrator of All of Us.

“Dreaming is my Superpower.
For me, following my dreams, no matter how far-reaching and impossible they seem, is a superpower. It takes bravery and imagination, and helps me discover strengths that I don’t know I have, and try new things that I might even be a little afraid to try.
I hope you follow your dreams too!”

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Angela Dominguez

Angela Dominguez, 2021 Children’s Book Week Bookmark creator and author/illustrator of Pura Belpré Illustration Honor book Maria Had a Little Llama.

“My superpower is my ability to organize. And if I could have a super-ability it would be to teleport, because sometimes you just want to give mom a hug.”

Check out her video on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Jon Scieszka

Jon Scieszka, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2008-2009) and author of the Astro-Nuts series.

“When I was 7 years old, sitting in the back of my 2nd-grade classroom, I realized my superpower was that I could get inside other humans’ brains … and make them laugh.

I asked my friend Tim K. if he had heard about the duck who walked into a bar.
‘No. What happened?’ said Tim K.
I whispered, ‘He said OUCH!’

Tim K. snorted a huge laugh.
The teacher asked, ‘What is so funny?’
And I started my life of using my superpower for both good and evil.”

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Tracy Deonn

Tracy Deonn, New York Times bestselling and Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe Award-winning author of Legendborn.

“My superpower is ’empathy,’ which means I am very good at understanding and sharing other people’s feelings. I use empathy when I read, watch, and listen to stories about other people’s experiences, and this helps me connect with my readers’ emotions when I write books!”

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Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2014-2015) and author of Beverly, Right Here.

“My superpower is that, sometimes, if I am very quiet and very patient, a squirrel will climb up on my shoulder and dictate a poem to me–like this one…”

Check out her poem on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Yuyi Morales

Yuyi Morales, 2019 Children’s Book Week poster creator and author/illustrator of Dreamers.

“I think that my superpower is being brave enough to try on new things. Even if they are going to be a little difficult.”

Check out her video with Señor Calavera on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Jordan Scott

Jordan Scott, author of I Talk Like a River.

“I listen
I breathe

I listen to my lungs
breathe air from
ocean, waves,
mist and tides.”

Check out his poem on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Aram Kim

Aram Kim, 2021 Children’s Book Week bookmark creator and author/illustrator of Sunday Funday in Koreatown.

“Trying new things will broaden your world!”

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Mo Willems

Mo Willems, author/illustrator of The Pigeon HAS to Go to School.

“Strong of spine & adequate of binding! Always there for you! I am BOOK!”

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Gene Luen Yang

Gene Yang, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2016-2017) and author/illustrator of American Born Chinese!

“Doodling is my superpower. Any time I feel stressed or sad, doodling makes me feel better!”

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Jessica Love

Jessica Love, author/illustrator of Julián at the Wedding.

“My superpower is that I can tell when someone is in the deep, dark place—maybe they made a mistake, or are feeling ashamed and alone, but when they are feeling like a bunch of garbage and like no one could ever love them, I know how to find them there. I can crawl into the dark place and be there with them. It doesn’t mean they leave the dark place right away, or even that it stops being dark. It just means they aren’t alone in it anymore. And being alone is the worst part.”

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Katherine Paterson

Katherine Paterson, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2010-2011) and author of Bridge to Terabithia.

“My superpower is reading. It’s what made life possible for me, as a lonely kid, and what turned me into a writer.”

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Juana Medina

Juana Medina, 2019 Children’s Book Week bookmark creator and author/illustrator of Juana & Lucas.

“There’s this superpower I’m still learning how to use. It’s potent, unlimited and accessible to ALL.

It’s quite amazing.

It can stop people in their tracks. It turns heads and opens doors; forges friendships and ends fights. Though it isn’t ALWAYS easy to comes across, it’s pretty much guaranteed to change outcomes.

KINDNESS”

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Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

“I am a loneliness savant, a phrase which here means ‘someone who is very good at loneliness.’
Even in an enormous crowd, on a bright and cheerful day, I can find a small corner of my mind where I know I am alone and separate from the world, and find the quiet delight, the happy sadness, of being lonely.”

Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2018-2019) and author of Before the Ever After.

“Writing through a pandemic, a revolution and a very confusing future is my superpower.”

Check out her quote on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Duncan Tonatiuh

Duncan Tonatiuh, 2020 Children’s Book Week bookmark creator and author/illustrator of Soldier for Equality.

“My superpower is that I write books, I tell stories, I make drawings, and I got those powers by reading a lot, looking at lots of different books, a lot of different artworks. So I encourage you to make your own books and to develop your own powers.”

Check out his video on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Sophie Blackall

Sophie Blackall, 2019 Children’s Book Week collaborative poster panel creator and author-illustrator of Hello Lighthouse.

“My superpower is that I try to remember people’s names. Notice that I say ‘try’ because I don’t believe you have to be perfect at something for it to be your superpower. I think you just have to work hard at it.”

Check out his video on our social media platforms for you to share or interact with them!

Paola Escobar

Paola Escobar, 2021 Children’s Book Week bookmark creator and illustrator of Queen of Tejano Music: Selena.

“My superpower is to find the unexpected beauty in everyday life, inhabited by characters and stories that deserve to be told. That daily life is sometimes imperceptible but full of magic in the small details.
With my superpower, I give life to all those stories through my illustrations and so I can invite you to do it, look for that unexpected beauty that inspires you to show your vision of the world.”

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Walter Dean and Christopher Myers

Walter Dean Myers, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2012-2013) and author of Monster. Superpower contributed by his son, Christopher Myers author-illustrator of My Pen.

“Some years ago, I was in a used bookshop in Nairobi. I saw a thin paperback, a sci-fi photo novella that my father had published in 1977, called Brainstorm. There were black teens in 2076 and they were entering people’s dreams. I thought then about my pop as a teenager, dropping out of high school, feeling bad about himself. And what a miracle it would have been to tell that dejected Harlem boy, that years from then he would be talking to young people like himself all over the world, from New York and the USA to dusty bookstores in Nairobi, comforting them, sharing with them, loving them- in a way that he hadn’t felt loved. Tell me that’s not a superpower.

Me, I am just trying to keep up with myself, and if I get half as much done as I can dream, I’ll be all the superhero I need to be.”

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