DC Super Hero Girls – Batgirl at Super Hero High

Lisa Yee's Batgirl at Super Hero High is a superhero school story for 9 year olds about a girl with no superpowers who wants a place among the ones who have them.

What happens

Barbara Gordon already knows Super Hero High inside out. She's the school's part-time tech wizard. She fixes the computers, recharges the weapons and reboots Cyborg whenever he glitches.

It opens at a school assembly. Supergirl calls a mystery figure down from the rafters and a girl in a black mask lands on the stage. The whole school starts whispering. One of the teachers goes very quiet, because he's her dad.

Commissioner Gordon is not impressed (Katana, who made the costume, would like everyone to know it's brilliant). Principal Waller offers Barbara a place as a student. Her dad says no. He says no again after an hour-long presentation full of graphs.

What changes his mind is a giant moth. Barbara is out for a run when Killer Moth starts wrapping cars in cocoons at a car dealership. She ends up trapping him in the car wash, and he comes out the other end squeaky clean and stuck in wax.

So she's in, on three months' probation and a list of rules. Keep your grades up. No attitude. Tell Dad everything.

It's a story about a very clever girl finding out that clever isn't the whole job. She's the teacher's pet in Robotics. In PE half the class flies laps round the school and she finishes dead last on foot. And she can't say no when everyone keeps handing her their broken phones and cameras. Can she really do it all? She's very sure she can.

There's lots of fun along the way. Supergirl hugs too hard and never ties her laces. The school counsellor bursts into opera halfway through Barbara's interview. Harley Quinn films everything.

If your reader is the clever one in the class, or has ever had to talk a parent round, Barbara will feel very familiar. Her dad's worry is real and quite touching too (he can't even face his slice of cake).

What to read next

The book picks up straight after Supergirl at Super Hero High, so these are best read in order. If your reader is starting fresh, go back to Wonder Woman at Super Hero High, where a warrior princess from Paradise Island first sends off her application to the school.