Save the Day with These 6 Super Middle Grade Books

By: Shanleigh Klassen
Save the Day with These 6 Super Middle Grade Books
Book RecommendationsComic Crusaders

It’s a bird!
It’s a plane!

No, it’s six super stories all about saving the day!

Our January book is perfect for fans of superheroes, super-villains, and super showdowns. Hilarious, action-packed, and full of heart, you won’t want to miss out on this book where sometimes being a hero is just about being yourself.

Read on for recommendations on more super stories, and be sure you don’t miss out on our January COMICS CRUSADERS box, available now!

Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin by Nadia Shammas, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali (GN)
Book cover of Ms. Marvel: Stretched Thin by Nadia Shammas and illustrated by Nabi H. Ali. Image shows a young Pakistani-American girl in a teal-coloured mask and superhero suit saving a baby from a villain with red glowing eyes and various spider-like appendages.
Kamala Khan (a.k.a. Ms. Marvel) is stretched too thin — literally. She's having a hard time balancing schoolwork with being a good friend, being there for her family, becoming the best fanfic writer this side of the Hudson River . . . and, you know, becoming a Super Hero. She's tired and just barely keeping control, BUT she's handling it. That is until a mysterious robot tries to infiltrate Avengers Tower. Now it’s up to Ms. Marvel to (again, literally) pull herself together and fix the mess she's made before anyone gets hurt.

 

Almost Super by Marion Jensen
Book cover of Almost Super my Marion Jensen. Image shows three children smiling towards the camera in various action poses. Looming above them are two teams of people glaring at each other menacingly. The team of people on the left are coloured in red and the team on the right are coloured in purple.

Each leap year, every member of the Bailey family over the age of twelve gets a superpower. No one knows why, and no one questions it. All the Baileys know is that it's their duty to protect the world from those evil, super-villainous Johnsons. Today, Rafter Bailey and his brother Benny are finally going to get their superpowers. But when their powers arrive, they are, well, duds. Suddenly Rafter and Benny's world is turned upside down. Especially when they realize that Juanita Johnson thinks that her family are the superheroes and the Baileys are the villains. What if everything Rafter thought he knew about superheroes turns out to be a lie?

Sidekicks by Dan Santat (GN)
Book cover for Sidekicks by Dan Santant. Image shows a dog, cat, frog, and hamster in various superhero outfits silhouetted by a moon over a cityscape.

Captain Amazing, superhero and saviour of Metro City, is getting old. He's out all hours battling arch-villains, catching thieves, and helping little old ladies cross the street. He doesn't even have time for his house full of pets. He needs — a sidekick and Captain Amazing's four pets agree. But each one of them thinks THEY should get the sidekick spot — and a chance for one-on-one time with the Captain. This graphic novel is a ton of fun.

 

Anti/Hero by Kate Karyus Quinn & Demitria Lunetta,
illustrated by Maca Gil (GN)
Book cover for Antihero by Kate Karyus Quinn and Demitria Lunetta, illustrated by Maca Gil. The right-side up image shows a young girl with brown hair in a superhero costume mid-run with a pink background. The upside down image shows a young sullen girl with grey hair in a black shirt with her arms-crossed in front of a cityscape.

Piper and Sloane are two girls with very different lives, but very similar secrets. At school, Piper is popular, upbeat, and always willing to help out her friends, whereas Sloane is a loaner, with zero friends and zero interest in having any. Piper longs to be a superhero and tries to use her powers to do good, even if she tends to leave a massive mess in her wake. Sloane on the other hand is smart, like evil-genius level smart, and she puts those smarts to use for her villainous grandfather. When a mission to steal an experimental device brings the two girls face-to-face, the device sparks and the girls switch bodies! Now they must live in each other's shoes as they figure out a way to switch back.

 

Sidekicked by John David Anderson
Book cover for Sidekicked by John David Anderson. Image is mostly in shades of blue, showing a young boy with hair over one of his eyes smirking at the camera as he pulls open his shirt to reveal a bright red shirt underneath, like the classic Superman reveal pose.

Andrew Bean might be a member of the secret organization for the training of superhero sidekicks, but that doesn’t mean that life is all leaping tall buildings in single bounds. Possessed of super senses, Drew is literally the most sensitive kid in school. Then there’s his superhero mentor, a former legend who now spends more time straddling barstools than he does fighting crime. And then there’s his best friend, Jenna — their friendship would be complicated enough if she weren’t able to throw a Volkswagen the length of a city block. But this was all before a supervillain long thought dead returned and superheroes began disappearing. Drew has always found it pretty easy to separate right from wrong, good from evil, but what happens when that line starts to break down?

 

Miles Morales: Shock Waves by Justin A. Reynolds, illustrated by Pablo Leon (GN)
Book cover for Miles Morales: Shock Waves by Justin A. Reynolds and illustrated by Pablo Leon. Image shows a young Afro-Latino boy sprinting across a building roof with a cityscape in tones of yellow and orange behind him. The boy grasps a SpiderMan mask, and his shadow in the bottom right corner is that also of SpiderMan.

Miles Morales is a normal kid who happens to juggle school at Brooklyn Visions Academy while swinging through the streets of Brooklyn as Spider-Man. After a disastrous earthquake strikes his mother's birthplace of Puerto Rico, Miles springs into action to help set up a fundraiser for the devastated island. But when a new student's father goes missing, Miles begins to make connections between the disappearance and a giant corporation sponsoring Miles' fundraiser.

 

Let us know your favourite superhero stories in the comments below! 

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