Passion, Power, and Smarts: An Interview With Kate Hannigan of ‘Cape’

Josie O’Malley, Akiko Nakano, and Mae Crumpler are young American girls wanting to help during World War Two, just like the older members of their family. After all three are rejected from being code breakers because they are girls, they find themselves in a secret program of superheroes! With a unique mix of prose storytelling with action bursts of graphic novel pages, Cape: The League of Secret Heroes by Kate Hannigan is a new favorite middle-grade book.

Just like the three heroines, this book is more than what you might first imagine. Yes, it is a fun adventure with powers and capes, but Hannigan brings depth to her characters dealing with prejudice and bullying at home to worrying about loved ones at war. And she goes into the history of that era with both the origins of female comic book heroes and the real-life female heroes that programmed the first computer ever built, a computer that would help the Allied forces across the oceans win the war. Plus, a mystery and several puzzles to solve along the way. Patrick Spaziante is the talented illustrator of Cape’s graphic pages.

Although women heroes, both fiction and non-fiction, are often overlooked in history, Harrigan brings them to the forefront in Cape, along with three new young heroes to inspire a new generation. Kate is no stranger to…