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Super Milly and the Super School Day

Stephanie Clarkson, illus. Gwen Millward
Nosy Crow
Age 3-5


It is superhero day at school and Milly enthusiastically gets her outfit ready, complete with special superhero badge. But she has a problem because she doesn’t have any superpowers! When she gets to school, she realises several other children need her help and she discovers her superpower is being super thoughtful so that everyone has a super day.

A lively picturebook which combines superhero fun with an underlying message that being kind is the very best sort of superpower.

Watch the story read aloud

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Phoebe had enjoyed other superhero books we’ve shared so I thought she’s like this one. We talked about what superpowers she would like, and she said she would like to be invisible to stop the baddies (she often talks about being invisible – she has an invisible imaginary friend called Dink!) Phoebe loved the idea of dressing up as a superhero – she wore her own tee shirt and leggings, and thought it was funny to wear a pair of pants on top. She borrowed her sister’s sparkly wellies and we pinned on a pillowcase as a cloak. Then we made a badge like Milly in the story – Phoebe is learning to write her name so was able to add a big letter P. She had fun striking poses and saying superhero words from the story like ‘Bam!’ and ‘Kaboom!’ We talked about what superhero name she would choose, she decided on ‘Fantastic Phoebe.’  When her grandad asked what her superpower was she said ‘helping people’ so I think she understood the message in the story – and had lots of superhero fun!

Share the story

Read Aloud
Before beginning to read the story talk about the images on the end papers together. Read the story aloud to your child.

Join In
Join in with the superhero words in bold eg Kerpow! Whizz!  Bam! Maybe making gestures at the same time

Talk about the book
Talk about Superheroes and what you know about them
What superhero skills you would like to have
What Milly did that was special
Talk about any unfamiliar vocabulary eg ‘X Ray vision’, ‘arachnophobia’ ‘force field’

Things to make and do

Dress up as a superhero
Find some old clothes and bits of cloth to make your own superhero outfit, just like Milly. You could put underpants on top of leggings too! Take photos, perhaps striking some superhero poses. You could print the photos and make a mini book to stick the photos in perhaps captioned with some superhero words like Bam! Zap! and Kaboom!

Draw a picture of yourself as a superhero
Children could draw a picture of themselves as a superhero on a single sheet of paper (or in a folded paper book) so that they can add pictures of their adventures being super thoughtful and helpful.

Make a superhero badge
Use a circle of card and draw a big initial capital letter stick a safety pin on the back.

Make up superhero names
Create alliterative superhero names eg ‘Phenomenal Phoebe’ or ‘Magnificent Max’ or ‘Daredevil Dinesh’

Make a super poster
Make a big poster with ‘Bam!’ ‘Kaboom!’ or ‘Zap!’ and pin it up on a wall. Whenever someone in the family does something super thoughtful, write it on a sticky note and stick on the poster.

Find out More

Read more books about superheroes – Heroes and Villains

Several topics are introduced in this story which your child might be interested in finding out more about including colour mixing, spiders, force fields, X rays and superhero jokes. Here are links for a couple of these:

Find out more about colour mixing
Amazing Archie in the story loves the colour green. Find out more about colour mixing and how to mix blue and yellow paint together to make different shades of green. Collect green things together eg leaves, vegetables and toys and see if your child can mix the same shades of green.

Find out about spiders CBeebies – Our Planet, Spiders and Animal Shelters, Spiders (bbc.co.uk)

Find out more about Xrays Taking an x-ray – CBBC – BBC

X-Rays – CBeebies – BBC
Paint a skeleton with white paint on black paper.