The Adventures of Super Susan

By Holly Schindler

Kindness is a superpower! Award-winning author Holly Schindler turns her attention to superheroes in this short adventure story. Using a character Schindler created when she was eight (a hero whose superpower is kindness), The Adventures of Super Susan offers a humorous, fast-paced read in which Susan is forced to face-off with a new arch-enemy, Blaze, a boy with super-jealousy who threatens to keep anyone at South Westport Elementary from outshining him...for good. Can Super Susan melt Blaze’s heart? Or will he simply be too much for even the most powerful kindness on planet Earth? A great read-aloud for grades 3-6, and a perfect companion piece for Schindler’s Invent Your Own Superhero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Holly Schindler
• Release date: Mar 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370806461

Holly Schindler

I'm a critically acclaimed and award winning hybrid author for readers of all ages--both the young in years and the young at heart. My work has received starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly, appeared on Booklist’s Best First Novels for Youth, PW Picks, School Library Journal’s What’s Hot in YA, and B&N’s 2016 YA Books with Irresistible Concepts and Most Anticipated May 2016 YA Books. My YA work has also won a Silver Medal in ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year and a Gold Medal in the IPPY Awards. My MG work is critically acclaimed as well, having made the master lists for several state readers’ awards, including this year’s Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award and Missouri’s Mark Twain Readers Award, and has been chosen for inclusion in the Scholastic Book Fair.

Book preview

The Adventures of Super Susan

Published by Holly Schindler, LLC

Copyright © 2018 by Holly Schindler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Holly Schindler

Cover background image by Dahabian, courtesy of Shutterstock

Cover illustration and Super Susan glitter lettering by Holly Schindler, age 8

Lazy Hand cover font by Jenna Maxfield, courtesy of Creative Market

Dedicated to Eight-Year-Old Holly

who came up with a superhero called Super Susan, a character whose one and only superpower was…kindness. I finally wrote a story to go along with the superhero I created all those years ago.

Now, more than ever, kindness truly does seem like a superpower all its own.

Superheroes and Storytelling

The superhero story structure is a great way for young writers to learn many of the ins and outs of storytelling. If you’d like to get in on the fun, check out my writing guide Invent Your Own Superhero. Check HollySchindler.com for availability

The Adventures of Super Susan

Holly Schindler

1.

It was a normal enough morning. Winter birds—mostly bright red cardinals—were chirping. The February air was crisp and cold. And Susan Crawford was walking to school.

Susan Crawford was herself a very normal girl. If, by normal, what you really meant was that she was quiet and she followed all the rules and was never causing any trouble.

She walked along, humming pleasantly to herself, her breath making little white clouds. Her head bobbed slightly with each step, the giant fuzzy knob on top of her knit hat jiggling in time with her melody.

Until sounds of distress floated down from the sky.

Susan stopped abruptly, sending snow chunks flying up from the toes of her waterproof boots.

Her eyes widened and she looked up, searching for the source of the desperate wail.

There it was—on the edge of an elm branch. A cat, stranded. Crying and cold.

Susan ripped off her very normal hat and her normal winter coat. She tossed them both under the tree.

There she stood, in the February cold, in nothing more than the long-sleeved shirt that her grandmother had given her for Christmas—purple and pink, because they were her favorite colors.

Standing in the cold without a coat was a very un-normal thing to do, quite frankly.

But then again, underneath it all, Susan Crawford was quite un-normal herself.

Deep down, she wasn’t just Susan Crawford.