FORT SIMPSON - Lately Bradley Riles has been falling asleep to the tales of Captain Underpants.

An unlikely hero, Captain Underpants is really the alter ego of Principal Krupp who runs around fighting evil in a pair of white, cotton underpants in the series of books by Dav Pilkey.

Adana Holland, left, Michael Gast and Shaun Holland share brain power to figure out a quiz at the Family Literacy Day celebration last Thursday at the Open Doors Society. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

According to the books, Captain Underpants was created when fourth graders George Beard and Harold Hutchins used a 3-D hypno-ring to transform Krupp and discovered a simple finger snap could do the same whenever they liked.

In his underpants, the captain fights evildoers with suitably-themed names like Dr. Diaper and Professor Poopypants.

Sound like your kind of book? Seven-year-old Riles thinks so and has his mom Kim Riles read him bits of the stories every night.

Riles was just one of the people who came out to celebrate family literacy on Jan. 24 at the event hosted by the Open Doors Society in Fort Simpson and organized in part by the local Girl Guides.

Reading has been a family activity for the Giles for generations. Kim remembers her parents reading to her.

Her mom just sent her about 50 books that they used to read together. While Bradley is now into chapter books, his 10-month-old sister Emily is still entranced by board books.

Reading to children at any age is very important, said librarian Lorraine Ocko, who had a table set up at the event to issue new library cards.

If parents don't start reading to children when they're young, they won't have an interest in books, she said.

Children who are read to are always excited when they get to the library, said Ocko. Even if they can't read yet they will hold books and pretend.

She said children who haven't been exposed to books don't know how to hold one or use it.

Even older children like to be read to. Although her youngest daughter Leanne is 10, Ocko said she still likes being read to because it brings back happy memories.

Over the years some of her family's favourite books have included The Hungry Caterpillar, the Franklin and Clifford series, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach.

Literacy-related activities were in full swing at the celebration on Thursday as more than 70 people read books and played board games.

Children and books could be found all over the floors, tables and chairs of the Open Doors Society's toy lending library room. The evening also included a quiz and snacks. Each visitor took away a free book as they left.

Books from the Magic Treehouse series are Nicholas Lirette's favourites.

"I like to read books that are about adventure," said Lirette, 8.

The magic treehouse provides plenty of adventure as it transports the book's characters to things and places they want to see.

For Reannda Cli and Cydney Nahanni-Kwasney, both 10, the Goosebumps series are more to their liking.

"They're kind of creepy," said Nahanni-Kwasney.

In one book called the Headless Ghost, a boy's family moves into a house haunted by a sailor's ghost who rips the boy's head off. And that's just the beginning of the creepy part, said, Nahanni-Kwasney.

Sounds like a case for Captain Underpants.