Explore Popular Myths with Legendary Beasts

From ancient myths about centaurs to urban legends of chupacabra sightings, tales of mysterious creatures have thrilled and fascinated people for thousands of years. Apex’s Legendary Beast series highlights eight creatures that appear in popular myths and legends from around the world.

Each book opens with a narrative chapter that shows the creature in action.

After that, three short chapters walk readers through the creature’s appearance and behavior, the history of legends about it, and some possible explanations for how those legends began.

Apex books have relatively few words per page, but they’re designed to appeal to older readers. While the text’s simple sentence structure keeps the reading level at grades 2–3, the content of those sentences is crafted to interest kids in grades 3–7. For example, the Legendary Beasts books summarize famous legends in a way that’s easy to understand but never feels condescending. Readers learn the main traits of each creature, as well as plenty of fascinating facts they can share with their friends.

In addition to being fun to read, books help support Common Core Curriculum Standards, and every series comes with a printable lesson plan that helps students build reading skills in the classroom or at home.