Scholastic will be launching a new series called the Infinity Ring featuring several well known authors and an interactive website.
The new series looks to capitalize on the success of the 39 Clues series which has used authors Rick Riordan, Margret Peterson Haddix, and Patrick Carman. The Infinity Ring is geared for kids ages 8-12 and will involve time travel, historical events, and an online game component. So far there are seven scheduled books in the series. Authors James Dashner, Carrie Ryan, Matt de la Pena, Jennifer Nielsen, Lisa McMann, and Matthew J. Kirby are set to scribe the books. James Dashner will be writing both the first and seventh book in the series.
The series will be about the best friends Dak Smyth and Sera Froste, who have found the key to time travel, a hand-held device called the Infinity Ring. Once they discover the device, the pair are swept into a secret war over the future of mankind and are sent to travel back in time to change the events when history went off course.
Along the way Dak and Sera encounter historical figures like Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Louis XVI and Harriet Tubman. Children reading the books and playing the online game can interact with the characters and press them for historical information. Playing the game — which will be available on the Web, smartphones and tablets — should lead children back into the books, which contain clues and information that will not be online.
As far as the gaming portion goes, Stacy Lellos, the vice president for multiplatform publishing and marketing at Scholastic’s trade division insists, “you won’t know who the characters are, and you won’t know which characters to use unless you’ve been reading the books.”
The first book in the series, A Mutiny in Time, will be released September 2012. The website and games will launch in conjunction with the release of the book.
Can this type of book reach struggling readers and engage them in the story because of the game aspect?