Pictured above are the story hour kids with service dog Thor, brought in by veteran Leroy Wooff. Wooff taught the kids about the importance of service dogs and how to treat them. For more photos, pick up a copy of this week's print issue.

The “Every Hero Has a Story” summer reading program at Norma Anders Public Library had children exploring super hero science, real life animal heroes, and storybook heroes of all kinds. The program was held on Mondays in June. Fifty children attended over the four weeks.

The summer reading program started June 8 with a visit from Grout Museum’s outreach coordinator, Jason Dornbush, who showed the kids the science behind several super heroes including Storm, Spider Man, Superman and Captain America. The children had an action-packed, educational hour of fun. Mr. Dornbush used volunteers for some of the experiments and activities and also brought a guest tarantula.

Veteran Leroy Wooff and his service dog, Thor, joined the library’s story hour on June 15. Leroy taught the children about the importance of asking the owner of a service dog for permission prior to petting. Leroy got his service dog from Retrieving Freedom, an organization who trains service dogs and places them in homes with veterans and autistic children. Leroy tries to educate the public about service dogs. When services dogs are working in public, petting them without permission is disrespectful to the owner and a disruption to the dog who is trying to work. The story hour children also made an American flag bulletin board out of their red, white and blue handprints in tribute to our soldier heroes.

On June 22, the story hour children listened to a book called Hero Cat by Eileen Spinelli. The children learned the true story about how a cat saved her five kittens from a burning building in New York. They also watched a short video from Reading Rainbow showing the mother cat after the fire and made hero cat puppets complete with super hero capes.

Every Hero Has a Story concluded on June 29. The children learned how they can be heroes by recycling, not littering and helping others. They also listened to a book about recycling as well some about heroes and their sidekicks. They made superhero masks to wear, played a guessing game about Disney sidekicks, and received prizes to reward their summer reading efforts.