DC Super Hero Girls – Wonder Woman at Super Hero High

Lisa Yee's Wonder Woman at Super Hero High is a funny superhero school story for 9 year olds about a warrior princess who takes absolutely everything literally.

What happens

Wonder Woman has grown up on Paradise Island, taught at home among the Amazons, with her mum as their queen. She can stop a boat full of schoolchildren capsizing under a tidal wave (her mum just calls after her to be home by dinner). What she's never done is go to school.

So she quietly sends off an application to Super Hero High. Her mother would rather she stayed and ruled the island one day. Wonder Woman says she wants to grow up to be just like herself, and she's allowed to go.

Then the fun starts. Nobody has ever explained a handshake to her. When a boy walks towards her in the corridor with his hand out, she decides it's an attack and throws him down the hall! Once she's been told, she shakes so many hands so hard that there's a queue outside the nurse's office.

Her roommate is Harley Quinn, who films everything for her own video channel. Wonder Woman tidies their room by putting all of Harley's stuff in the bin. Harley isn't cross. She's thrilled, because she got the lasso bit on camera.

Most of the giggles come from Wonder Woman being so very earnest. Someone calls her a teacher's pet and she looks round for the animal. She's told to get a sense of humour, so she writes it on her to-do list. Who hasn't felt like that somewhere new, smiling along and not quite sure what the joke was?

There's a bit more going on underneath, too. A quiet girl called Mandy has just been expelled, and the rumour is she was pushed out to make room for Wonder Woman. Then an email turns up with no name on it, telling her she isn't wanted and should go home.

Add Cheetah tripping her up in assembly and a Super Triathlon the school hasn't won for fifty years, and there's plenty to keep your reader going.

It's not all laughs. She misses her mum, and a note from home is a sweet, slightly teary moment that never gets heavy.

If you've got a reader who loves school stories and superheroes in equal measure, this one is an easy sell. The heroes are teenagers, but the worries are the ones every new kid has.

What to read next

If they fall for the school and its crowd, Katana at Super Hero High is a quieter, more mysterious one. Katana vanishes on the way to a party and Wonder Woman joins the search.