The temperature is rising and school’s out soon. Summer is coming! Stop by the library this summer for its heroic Summerfest in June and July. We’ll have extraordinary events and phenomenal reading prizes in the theme of HEROES. Rack up some reading hours with these bold and fearless book series.

Preschool

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans and John Bemelmans Marciano

Everyone’s favorite fearless heroine says, “pooh-pooh,” to everything and everyone of the dangerous and scary kind. Baddies include appendicitis, a street thief, the loneliness of a friend and Lord Cucuface, the always nosy—sometimes cruel—head of school.

Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell

Heroes are not all capes and muscles of steel. Sometimes a hero is just a big red dog. Clifford is Emily Elizabeth’s big red dog, who has many tales of adventure and assistance.

Early Readers

Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems

Being kind, understanding and helpful can be as heroic as moving mountains and leaping skyscrapers. Friends, Piggie and Gerald, go through a lot together: playing outside, parties, driving, broken noses. They get through all of them with a little help from each other.

Fly Guy by Tedd Arnold

Flies are so annoying! Wait, a fly as our hero? No way! Yes way! Say hi to Fly Guy, Buzz’s pet. Heroes can come in small packages but still can make a huge difference.

Tweens

Adventures of Beanboy by Lisa Harkrader

Sometimes it’s where your heart is that determines whether you’re a hero. Tucker reads about heroes in comics. He even created a sidekick for a hero. But he’s the one that comes through for people. A great story of the heroes among us.

Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke

Some heroes are born from mistakes they regret. Zita plays a trick on her friend, and he ends up being transported to another world. Since it was her fault, Zita feels she must go and find him. Along the way she meets some beings, some end up her friends and some her enemies.

Teens

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Dystopias create tough, gritty heroes and sick, twisted villains. In Divergent our hero, Beatrice, decides she doesn’t want to do what she’s been told from her earliest days: choose a faction to stay with as long as she lives. And when she makes this decision, she finds that the entire society she lives in is not what she thought it was. And that the villains are many.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

We often say that heroes are made, but sometimes we mean that literally. Such is “Ender” Wiggins, a human developed to be able to defeat alien invaders. Of course, nothing ever goes as planned, and Ender must learn train and adapt. Fighting his own people—even his own family—might be just as dangerous as the alien enemy.

This post is cross-published with XYZ, Topeka’s family magazine.

Jason Lamb

Jason is the tween librarian, a children's advocate, and a new Kansan. When he's not a librarian, he's a father to twin girls and a singleton dog.