Last year, I signed on to write a children’s time travel series for Wonder Stories. The new imprint, the brainchild of Dr. Elliott Hedman of MIT, aims to use technology to redefine stories for reluctant readers by introducing interactive questions and problem solving.

The first book in my series, The Door to Tomorrow, was supposed to debut with a dozen other Wonder Stories books at SXSW in March. Unfortunately, the pandemic cancelled the original launch and left the imprint scrambling for a new direction.

I’m happy to report that you can now read these books for free on the new Wonder Stories app (available for Android and iOS devices) or on the website. I am told the stories will remain free to families during the Covid-19 pandemic (and free to teachers indefinitely). With a kiddo of my own quarantined at home and the chance of that continuing into the new school year, I greatly appreciate the gesture to help families in this difficult time.

The Door to Tomorrow is written at a 3rd grade level. If you’ve got a reluctant reader (or a reader that just seems a tad behind his or her class), I highly recommend checking it out.

And if you’re interested in the research behind this new approach to storytelling, Elliot has done some fascinating work. He literally built a sensor to measure the subconscious emotional engagement of children as they read.

The second book in the series, The Man Time Forgot, has already been turned in, and I’ve just started work on Time Quake!

The Door to Tomorrow
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