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.
You can now read the first of these books for free on the new Wonder Stories app (available for Android and iOS devices) or on their website . 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.