Add a few wizards and creatures to your child's reading list

Books about sea serpents, wizards and knights will spark lots of imaginative play during the long days of summer. Here are a few light reads for preschoolers to elementary-school readers.

A fantastical ocean tale, "The Sea Serpent and Me" (Houghton Mifflin, 40 pp., $17, ages 4-8), follows a little girl's adoption of an unlikely pet that drops out of her bathtub faucet. Illustrator Catia Chien's vibrant watercolor paintings reflect author Dashka Slater's lyrical underwater world, where "manta rays swim like dancing blankets." Soon too big for the house, the serpent must return to the ocean. When he worries about being lonely, his young friend assures him the whales will sing with him and "when you're tired, the waves will rock you to sleep."

The next time siblings start bickering, point out their fortune: They could have millions of brothers and sisters, like termites in their four-story-high nests. Then pull out "Sisters & Brothers: Sibling Relationships in the Animal World" (Houghton Mifflin, 32 pp., $16, ages 4-9) by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page, the couple responsible for the 2004 Caldecott Honor book, "What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?" With nifty torn-paper illustrations, this nonfiction book highlights all sorts of interesting sibling relationships (some more positive than others — black widow spiderlings, for example, munch on their weaker sacmates). As they imagine baby-sitting baby elephants or swooping at 200 mph in a peregrine falcon practice dive, kids won't even realize their sibling is still breathing on them.

In Gerald Morris' collection of short stories, "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great" (Houghton Mifflin, 32 pp., $15, ages 5-10), Sir Lancelot wields his cleverness as effectively as his sword. The tales have little to do with the Round Table, instead focusing on Lancelot's frustrations as Camelot's Most Famous Knight: Queens kidnap him because he's so handsome and jealous wannabe knights challenge him at every turn. It's enough to make even the most adventurous knight want to give up his shiny armor in favor of afternoon naps. A threat to Queen Guinevere's life, though, brings the hero out of retirement.

Mermaids, trolls, and gargoyles populate "Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures" (Harcourt, 32 pp., $16, ages 6-9) by two Seattle residents, poet Julie Larios and illustrator Julie Paschkis. Paschkis' always stunning gouache paintings are a perfect match for these other-worldly creatures, with a red, peacock-like firebird and a Chinese-inspired "naga of the seven heads." In Larios' evocative short poems, the Sphinx's "riddle maker is silent now" and the thunderbird's "wings beat the old drums."

A humble hero narrates "The Magic Thief" (HarperCollins, 432 pp., $16.99, ages 9-12) by Sarah Prineas. Conn, a street urchin, picks the pocket of a grumpy wizard, Nevery, and winds up as his apprentice. The first in a planned trilogy, the book's appeal is its independent and likable novice, who enjoys transfiguring into a cat. In this world, magic is not unlike electricity, powering the city's factories. With this important force mysteriously seeping away, Conn must convince Nevery that the evil Underlord and his devious wizard are responsible — and avoid the thugs trying to thwart him.

Even more dastardly evil faces Valkyrie Cain and her witty (albeit dead) partner, Skulduggery Pleasant, in "Playing with Fire" (HarperCollins, 400 pp., $16.99, ages 10-14) by Derek Landry. The second in a planned series about the wizard detectives, it's a parent's best bet for dragging kids away from that Xbox. The literary equivalent of a video game, it's packed with action, violence (the blow-by-blow fight descriptions and some deaths are not for the squeamish), magic, and not one but half a dozen over-the-top bad guys (including a vampire, shape shifter, and unstoppable monster, the Grotesquery). Landry isn't afraid to let girls/women get hurt, so its equal opportunity butt-kicking should appeal to both genders.