It's no secret that superheroes are huge among kids these days, but getting the preteen set to read comic books is a harder challenge.

According to a new report by Torsten Adair at The Beat, DC Comics and kids publishing powerhouse Scholastic may soon be trying to bridge that gap with a new series inspired by the style of Derek Fridolfs and Dustin Nguyen's "Lil' Gotham" comics.

After digging through early catalog information for 2016 book releases (a series of title descriptions which frequently arrive on sites like Amazon before official publisher announcements), Adair discovered evidence for what appears to be a comics/chapter book hybrid release by Fridolfs and Nguyen under the brand name "Secret Hero Society" with the specific release "Study Hall of Justice" set for release next year. A description of the project is as follows:

Being the new kid at school is tough, especially when your school is called Doomvale Academy and your name is Bruce Wayne. There's a gang of jokers roaming the halls, a muscle-headed kid named Bane wants to beat you up, and your headmaster Hugo Strange seems really, well, strange.

This inventive novel follows young Bruce Wayne and his friends Clark (Superman) and Diana (Wonder Woman) as they start a Junior Detective Agency to investigate their teachers and find out what's going on behind closed doors at Doomvale Academy, all before recess.

This all-new story presents a twist on the idea of junior sleuths, using comics, journal entries, and doodles to reimagine Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman as three students in the same school. They'll try their best to solve their case, but just because you're faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive, it doesn't mean you get to stay up past eleven.

DC Comics declined to comment on the story when reached by CBR News.

Inspired by Nguyen's chibi-style drawings of the cast of "Batman," the "Lil' Gotham" series went from online fan favorite to fully fledged DC digital comic series in recent years. A continuation of the style (if not the continuity) of those stories would seem a natural fit for Scholastic's licensed division.

Stay tuned for more on this as it becomes available on CBR.