Children's books and activities
Heroes and Superheroes
Many kids are fascinated by superheroes, with their extraordinary powers and awesome adventures. We also celebrate the lives of real-life heroes — athletes, artists, activists, and government leaders — role models who stood up for what's right and fair. We've gathered up a great collection of books, activities, apps, and websites for learning all about heroes and superheroes.
Try pairing fiction with nonfiction books and exploring different genres [6] (like poetry and biographies) and formats (like graphic novels and audio books). You'll be creating your own "text sets" — collections of texts focused on a specific topic, such as heroes and superheroes. Reading widely in this way helps children build background knowledge [7], vocabulary [8], and comprehension skills.
How to explore this theme:
- Read fiction and nonfiction books
- Try some hands-on activities
- Build writing skills with these fun ideas
- Dig deeper with kid-friendly websites
- Play and learn with mobile apps
More themed resources:
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Great Fiction & Nonfiction Books
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Print List
A Is for Activist
By: Innosanto Nagara
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Each spread presents a letter and a bit of social commentary urging children to take a stand...
Purchase book [21]
Awesome Dawson
By: Chris Dall
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Purchase book [22]
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike of 1909
By: Michelle Markell
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Purchase book [23]
John Henry
By: Julius Lester
Age Level: 3-6 years old
John Henry's talent was evident at an early age when he helped his daddy, but was cemented...
Purchase book [24]
More Than Anything Else
By: Marie Bradby
Age Level: 3-6 years old
More than anything else, young Booker T. Washington wanted to read. This fictionalized account...
Purchase book [25]
Rosa's Bus: The Ride to Civil Rights
By: Jo Kittinger
Age Level: 3-6 years old
No one knew that when "Bus #2857 rolled off the assembly line in 1948 ... [that it] would...
Purchase book [26]
Tasty Baby Belly Buttons
By: Judy Sierra
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Uriko is small but brave, determined, and smart. In fact, she saves the town’s children when...
Purchase book [27]
The Adventures of Sparrowboy
By: Brian Pinkney
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Mild-mannered paperboy Henry collides with a sparrow and turns into Sparrowboy just like his...
Purchase book [28]
The Impossible Patriotism Project
By: Linda Skeers
Age Level: 3-6 years old
Caleb's class is making projects that represent patriotism but Caleb can't think of a way to...
Purchase book [29]
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Print List
A Picture Book of Jackie Robinson
By: David Adler
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A portrait of a true American sports hero, Jackie Robinson, who was the first African American...
Purchase book [30]
A Picture Book of Jesse Owens
By: David Adler
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [31]
Abe's Honest Words
By: Doreen Rappaport
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A straightforward overview of Lincoln's life is punctuated by Lincoln's words and...
Purchase book [32]
Annie and Helen
By: Deborah Hopkinson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [33]
Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy US Marshall
By: Vauda Micheau
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Formerly enslaved in the 19th century, Bass Reeves escaped Texas and lived with Indians. It was...
Purchase book [34]
Bright Path: Young Jim Thorpe
By: Don Brown
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Jim Thorpe's childhood was a mix of hard work in the outdoors and a succession of military-...
Purchase book [35]
Captain America Joins the Mighty Avengers
By: Rich Thomas
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [36]
Cut from the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend and Tall Tale
By: Robert San Souci
Age Level: 6-9 years old
From the Northeast to the West, the United States is filled with stories of wise, strong, and...
Purchase book [37]
Daring Dozen: The Twelve Who Walked on the Moon
By: Suzanne Slade
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Spare, poetic text and luminous, realistic illustrations chronicle the Apollo missions....
Purchase book [38]
Dear Malala, We Stand with You
By: Rosemary McCarney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
This tribute to the Pakistani girl who has become the face for children’s education worldwide...
Purchase book [40]
Elizabeth Started All the Trouble
By: Doreen Rappaport
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Women could not attend college, enter politics or vote when the United States was established....
Purchase book [41]
Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes Pop-Up
By: Matthew Reinhart, Robert Sabuda
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Six beautifully illustrated full-page spreads, each including a dramatic paper-sculpture...
Purchase book [42]
Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table
By: Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Martin shares the remarkable life story of former professional basketball player Will Allen,...
Purchase book [43]
Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh
By: Robert Burleigh
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Charles Lindbergh was only 25 years old when he made his historic non-stop flight across the...
Purchase book [44]
Float Like a Butterfly
By: Ntozake Shange
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Visually stunning and informative, Ali’s early life, how it influenced him, as well as his many...
Purchase book [45]
Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A girl and her mom want to have a sweet treat on a hot day but cannot sit at the soda fountain...
Purchase book [46]
Go for the Moon: A Rocket, a Boy, and the First Moon Landing
By: Chris Gall
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A boy looking out his bedroom window into the night sky begins, “The moon is out tonight. In the...
Purchase book [47]
Harvesting Hope: The Story of César Chávez
By: Kathleen Krull
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [48]
I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark
By: Debbie Levy
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime disagreeing: disagreeing with...
Purchase book [49]
John Henry: An American Legend
By: Ezra Jack Keats
Age Level: 6-9 years old
John Henry was born to be a hero – strong, competitive and determined. The legendary steel-...
Purchase book [50]
Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters
By: Andrea Pinkney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Brief sketches of the lives of both well-known (for example, Harriet Tubman) and lesser known...
Purchase book [51]
Lunch Lady and the Mutant Mathletes
By: Jarrett Krosoczka
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [52]
Magic Pickle
By: Scott Morse
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Sophisticated readers will appreciate the over-the-top adventures of a cryogenic pickle that...
Purchase book [53]
Malala: Activist for Girls' Education
By: Raphaële Frier
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Malala’s story is one of the resilience that comes from strong conviction. It is told through a...
Purchase book [54]
Meet the Marvel Super Heroes
By: Scott Peterson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [55]
Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman
By: Alan Schroeder
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [56]
My Name Is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth
By: Ann Turner
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery but she would not remain enslaved. Instead, she took the...
Purchase book [57]
Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World
By: Laurie Lawlor
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Rachel Carson was a shy child, always drawn to nature. She grew up to become a professional...
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Sidekicks
By: Dan Santat
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [59]
Sojourner Truth's Step-Stomp Stride
By: Andrea Pinkney, Brian Pinkney
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Lively language and energetic illustrations create a memorable portrait of a woman who was to...
Purchase book [60]
Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx / La juez que crecio en el Bronx
By: Jonah Winter
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Poverty didn’t stop this girl from working hard, reading lots of books, and graduating top in...
Purchase book [61]
Stealing Home: Jackie Robinson Against the Odds
By: Robert Burleigh
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Lush, realistic illustrations combine with a simple text to suggest what it must have been like...
Purchase book [62]
Superhero School
By: Aaron Reynolds
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Leonard is disappointed in superhero school; the only thing his teacher, The Blue Tornado, talks...
Purchase book [63]
Susan B. Anthony
By: Alexandra Wallner
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Susan B. Anthony lived and worked as a teacher when women were paid less for the same jobs...
Purchase book [64]
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
By: Deborah Hopkinson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Clara is born into slavery but learns an important skill when she becomes a seamstress. Her...
Purchase book [65]
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
By: William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer
Age Level: 6-9 years old
When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba's Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone's crops...
Purchase book [66]
The First Step: How One Girl Put Segregation on Trial
By: Susan E. Goodman
Age Level: 6-9 years old
More than a century before Brown v. Board of Education, there was Roberts v. City of Boston....
Purchase book [67]
The Incredible Life of Balto
By: Meghan McCarthy
Age Level: 6-9 years old
A dog saved the people of Nome, Alaska in 1925 when a sled team was the only way to fetch...
Purchase book [68]
The Mighty 12: Superheroes of Greek Myth
By: Charles Smith
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Greek gods and goddesses are the stuff of contemporary superheroes. Dramatic full-color,...
Purchase book [69]
Treasury of Greek Mythology
By: Donna Jo Napoli
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Vivid retellings and luminous illustrations reinvigorate Greek myths. The tales of gods and...
Purchase book [70]
What Lincoln Said
By: Sarah Thomson
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Lincoln's own words punctuate this overview of his life and times including lighter moments...
Purchase book [71]
Wings
By: Christopher Myers
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Stunning, bold collage illustrations carry the action in this reworking of the traditional Greek...
Purchase book [72]
Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass
By: Lesa Cline-Ransome
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [73]
Young Zeus
By: G. Brian Karas
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Purchase book [74]
Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Makes a Splash
By: Jacqueline Jules
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Freddie Ramos' super running and jumping powers and his confidence disappear after the loss of...
Purchase book [75]
Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off
By: Jacqueline Jules
Age Level: 6-9 years old
Product Description: One day Freddie Ramos comes home from school and finds a strange box just...
Purchase book [76]
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Print List
12 Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali
By: Charles R. Smith, Jr.
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From the moment a fired-up teenager won 1960 Olympic gold to the day when a retired legend...
Purchase book [77]
Because They Marched: The People's Campaign for Voting Rights that Changed America
By: Russell Freedman
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Fifty years ago well-known civil rights leaders came together with other lesser known but key...
Purchase book [78]
Chasing Freedom: The Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony
By: Nikki Grimes
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, a staunch proponent of...
Purchase book [79]
Coretta Scott King: I Kept on Marching
By: Kathleen Krull
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Before she married Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott was known for her beautiful singing voice...
Purchase book [80]
Henry Aaron's Dream
By: Matt Tavares
Age Level: 9-12 years old
In spite of growing up in the 1940s before the United States was integrated, in a segregated...
Purchase book [81]
I Am Gandhi: A Graphic Biography of a Hero
By: Brad Meltzer
Age Level: 9-12 years old
The life of the man whose name is associated with nonviolent protest is presented in graphic...
Purchase book [82]
Independent Dames: What You Never Knew about the Women and Girls of the American Revolution
By: Laurie Halse Anderson
Age Level: 9-12 years old
This fact and fun-filled look at female contributions to the American Revolution provides a...
Purchase book [84]
Lives: Poems About Famous Americans
By: Lee Bennett Hopkins
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Well-known figures in American history are presented by diverse poets in a range of styles,...
Purchase book [85]
Lost in Outer Space: The Incredible Journey of Apollo 13
By: Tod Olson
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From "Houston, we've had a problem" to the final tense moments at Mission Control, Lost in Outer...
Purchase book [86]
March: Book One
By: John Lewis, Andrew Aydin
Age Level: 9-12 years old
John Lewis, son of a sharecropper, grew up to become an activist and later, a U.S. Congressman....
Purchase book [89]
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Purchase book [90]
Muddy Max: The Mystery of Marsh Creek
By: Elizabeth Rusch
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Max and his soil scientist parents live in a marsh where Max discovers mud’s special properties...
Purchase book [91]
Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag
By: Rob Sanders
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Have you ever wondered where the rainbow flag comes from? It all began with the first openly gay...
Purchase book [92]
She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
By: Loki Mulholland
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Early experiences brought the inequality of America into focus for young Joan, a white...
Purchase book [94]
The Breadwinner
By: Deborah Ellis
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in...
Purchase book [95]
The Hero's Trail
By: T.A. Barron
Age Level: 9-12 years old
What is a hero? Using the metaphor of a hiking trail, this book showcases the great variety of...
Purchase book [96]
The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane
By: Russell Freedman
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Using excerpts from Wilbur's and Orville's journals and letters, young readers will find a...
Purchase book [97]
Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer
By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Age Level: 9-12 years old
Stirring poems and vibrant collage illustrations combine to celebrate the life of Fannie Lou...
Purchase book [98]
We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History
By: Philip Hoose
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From the boys who sailed with Columbus to today's young activists, this unique book brings to...
Purchase book [99]
Words That Built a Nation: Voices of Democracy That Have Shaped America’s History
By: Marilyn Miller
Age Level: 9-12 years old
From the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address to the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on same-sex...
Purchase book [100]
Hands-on Activities
Build on what you're learning together through books with these family-friendly activities, experiments, and crafts.
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African American Heroes Trading Cards [101]
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Cardboard Swords [102]
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Comic-Themed Wallet [103]
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Design a Mission Patch [104]
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Dragon Hunter Goggles [105]
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Flashlight Morse Code [106]
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Harry Potter Potions [107]
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Super Hero Bracelets [108]
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Superhero Cape [109]
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Wizard Wand [110]
Summer Writing
Give kids a chance to flex their writing muscles all summer long. Try one of these prompts, selected from our writing contest archives and other literacy organizations.
Great Websites for Kids
Dive deeper into topics of interest with these media-rich and interactive sites.
- Famous African American Inventors [116]
- Indy Kids: A Paper for Kids by Kids [117]
- Latinos in History [118]
- Marvel Kids [119]
- My Hero Project [120]
- Nominate an African American Trailblazer [121]
- Percy Jackson Series: Meet the Greek Gods [122]
- The Harry Potter Lexicon [123]
- The Underground Railroad [124]
Mobile Apps
Educational apps recommended by Common Sense Media and other trusted reviewers.
- Big Kid Life Fire Fighter [125]
- Comic Strip Designer [126] $
- LEGO Harry Potter [127] $
- Numbers League [128] $
- Super Home Hero [129]
- Superhero Comic Book Maker [130] $
- The Adventures of Robin Hood [131] $
More Themed Resources
Growing Readers Tip Sheets
Simple activities for parents and kids to do together to build reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Read online or print the PDF.
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Five Literacy-Based Ways to Celebrate Earth Day [132]
Download PDF: English [133] | Spanish [134] -
Graphic Novels for Young Kids [135]
Download PDF: English [136] | Spanish [137] -
Science vs. Science Fiction [138]
Download PDF: English [139] | Spanish [140] -
The Importance of Reading Widely [141]
Download PDF: English [142] | Spanish [143]
Our Summer Blog
Washington DC for Kids
Places
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Carter G. Woodson Home [150]
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Lincoln Memorial [155]
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Washington Monument [164]
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World War II Memorial [165]