Pedal Power for Kids

April showers bring May… bicycles? Well, maybe not quite, but if you’re ready to get outside and enjoy the weather, May is National Bike Month!

Whether you’re excited to learn to ride someday, trying out the training wheels or zooming around like a pro, here are some great bicycle books that are sure to get your wheels turning.

The Young Cyclist's Companion: This how-to book is a great kid-friendly introduction to the world of bicycles! With all sorts of information – from picking out the right bike for you and taking care of it to fun trivia and historical facts – plus eye-catching art, this will inspire you to go for a ride of your own.

Everyone Can Learn to Ride A Bicycle: Nobody is born knowing how to ride a bike – everyone who can had to learn! In this beautiful picture book from Caldecott medalist Raschka, everybody can see how. It just takes patience, determination, bravery and encouragement.

The Adventures of A Girl Called Bicycle: Twelve-year-old Bicycle was named and raised by the nuns of the Mostly Silent Monastery who found her as a baby. When Sister Wanda suggests Friendship Factory sleepaway camp (three friendships or your money back!) for the summer, Bicycle sneaks off and comes up with her own plan instead: a solo cross-country bicycle ride to San Francisco to meet her idol, a Polish bicyclist. But on her journey, she’ll encounter ghosts, bikes that can write, strange women in black and many more mysteries that will test her self-reliance on the open road.

Pedal Power: The city of Amsterdam is full of bicycles: more people bike than drive every day there! It wasn’t always that way. In the 1970s, the city began to have so many cars that it became very dangerous to walk on the streets, especially for children. Maartje Rutten and the people who lived in Amsterdam protested for safe streets and rights for cyclists, helping improve their city as well as the Earth. Find out how they did it and how it made their lives better in this inspiring and easy to read non-fiction book.

Now that you’re in gear and ready to roll, what kind of adventures will you have on a bicycle this summer?