Central Kansas Library System

Cyrus Olson’s dad is a hero—Northfield’s former football star and now one of their finest firefighters. Everyone expects Cyrus to follow in his dad’s record-breaking footsteps, and he wishes they were right—except he’s never been brave like that. But this year, with the help of a stray dog, a few new friends, a little bit of rhythm, and a lot of nerve, he may just discover that actually…he is.

When a well-known author visits their school, Hank and his two best friends get the chance to be her guide for the day and introduce her at an assembly, but the situation forces Hank to find creative ways to hide his struggles with reading.

Six-year-old Sloane tells how she loves to make up dances, put on shows, and do cartwheels, but she cannot make sense of letters and words until she is diagnosed with dyslexia and gets help.

"Maple Mehta-Cohen has been keeping a secret: she can't read all that well. She has an impressive vocabulary and loves dictating stories into her recorder--especially the adventures of a daring sleuth who's half Indian and half Jewish like Maple herself--but words on the page just don't seem to make sense to her. Despite all Maple's clever tricks to hide her troubles with reading, her teacher is on to her, and now Maple has to repeat fifth grade....