Two Ann Sobrato High School teachers have joined forces to combine their subjects into a children’s book, pairing an English teacher’s writing with an art teacher’s illustrations in a new picture-based publication aimed at readers with ADHD and similar learning challenges.
“Never Wish for Superpowers: Invisible,” written by Chrissy Hunger and illustrated by Dale Dowd, follows Cooper, a boy who is granted a magical wish—to become invisible—and has to live with the consequences. The book is the first in a planned series and is expected to launch on Amazon in e-book format soon, with print copies to follow at Morgan Hill’s Booksmart.
Hunger, who has taught English for 20 years and started at Sobrato in 2019, currently teaches yearbook, creative writing and ASB. Dowd, a former video game developer, joined Sobrato the same year after teaching at Central High School; he now teaches graphic design and studio art courses, including Advanced Placement art.
Hunger said the idea for the book came from her son, a fourth grader recently diagnosed with ADHD who loves being read to despite his struggles to read on his own.
“He would sit next to somebody else in reading time with a book about the same size, and he wouldn’t get through it. He’d be faking it the whole time,” Hunger said. “I wanted to make something that was the same amount of pages, so he could sit next to somebody else and not feel any different. But when you look inside, there are more pictures, the font is larger—but he would still feel successful, and he could still develop that love of literature.”
Hunger, who also teaches creative writing at Sobrato and has published roughly a dozen books—mostly young-adult science fiction—said she wanted Cooper’s invisibility to reflect a common childhood impulse.
“There’s that element of everyone put into situations where you’re like, ‘I wish I could be invisible,’ or ‘I wish I could just be faster,’” she said. “By the end of Cooper’s story, and the subsequent books, there’s the same realization: it’s better to just be who you are.”
Dowd said he connected with the invisibility theme from his own school days.
“I was a super awkward artist-jock kid who felt alone, and I didn’t want to be seen,” Dowd said. “It seemed like a safer place. That’s at least how I connect the invisibility.”
For the book’s more than 30 illustrations, Dowd said he drew inspiration recalling childhood trips to Disneyland, where he admired sketch-style concept art that leaves visible construction lines beneath a finished image. He settled on a simplified, “Charlie Brown-style” character design after sketching about 15 versions of Cooper’s face.
The two teachers said the collaboration mirrored the kind of feedback loop they encourage in their own classrooms.
Dowd said he uses examples from the book-making process in his concept art units, sharing draft character sketches that he presented to Hunger during the development stages of the book.
Hunger said she similarly workshopped fonts with students, drawing on advice from a Stanford collaborator on typefaces that are easier to read for students with dyslexia and ADHD, before settling on the book’s layout.
Hunger said the accessible format is meant to help students build reading confidence before high school.
“By the time they get to high school, it’s harder,” Hunger said. “If you can get them earlier, and tell them, ‘You still can do this, even though you might learn differently,’ then they don’t develop a disdain for reading.”
Hunger said the series will continue with the same magical wish-granting coin finding its way to a new owner, who in turn wishes for a different superpower.
“Each book will have a different superpower, but with the same underlying message: ‘Be you,’” she said.
