For parents, teachers & librarians

Read for fun. Trusted for facts.

Kids pick up ChronoStone for the dinosaurs and the secret chambers. We wrote it so the grown-ups can feel good about everything they learn along the way.

At a glance

What's inside every book

  • For readers ages 7–10 (about grades 2–5), and for parents and grandparents to read aloud to younger children. Each chapter takes about 5–7 minutes to read aloud, and the full-color pictures make it perfect for bedtime.
  • Maggie's Field Notes: fact boxes in a kid's voice, each fact cited to a real source.
  • Historical Facts: a back-of-book section that separates what really happened from the story.
  • Lessons Learned: ready-made discussion starters about courage, teamwork, honesty and curiosity.
  • References: a full APA-style source list in every book, so you can check us.
  • Easy to read: set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface designed by the Braille Institute for clear, easy reading.

A real Field Note from Book 1

MAGGIE'S FIELD NOTES
How a Cave Gets Made
  • Rainwater is slightly acidic. Over a very long time, it dissolves limestone and carves out caves! (U.S. Geological Survey [USGS], n.d.)
  • Pennsylvania has lots of this kind of rock, called karst. That's why it has so many caves and sinkholes. (Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources [DCNR], n.d.-b)
  • Pennsylvania DOES get earthquakes, but most are so small that nobody even feels them. (Tutella, 2019)

We did our homework

Real sources, cited

Across the 20 books there are 199 cited sources, from museums, universities, national parks, government science agencies and peer-reviewed journals.

The magic is the ChronoStone. Everything else, from the history and the science to the places and the people, is checked against published sources. When historians still disagree (did the Hanging Gardens of Babylon really exist? what happened to the Roanoke colonists?), the book says so.

Sample: Book 1 references

Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. (n.d.-b). Sinkholes. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/conservation/geology/geologic-hazards/sinkholes

Tutella, F. (2019, November 8). Pennsylvania State Seismic Network sees activity underground. Penn State News. https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/pennsylvania-state-seismic-network-sees-activity-underground

U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). Geology of Mammoth Cave National Park. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://www.usgs.gov/geology-and-ecology-of-national-parks/geology-mammoth-cave-national-park

Honest history, told gently

The real past, at a kid's level

Myths are labeled

A minstrel sings of King Arthur in Knights of the Round Table, and the book explains that Arthur is a legend, while the 1215 siege of Rochester Castle really happened.

Old myths corrected

In The Pharaoh's Puzzle, the pyramids are built by organized, well-fed Egyptian work crews, as archaeologists have found, not by slaves.

Hard history with care

The fall of Tenochtitlan, the Western Front and occupied France are told truthfully, from a safe distance, at a level that's right for young readers.

Talk about it

Lessons Learned

Every book ends with a few big ideas, each tied to a moment in the story. They work well for bedtime chats, book clubs or classroom discussion.

Here's what kids talk about after It Followed Us Home.

  1. TeamworkMaggie holds the countdown while Ethan and Rex lure the T. rex back. Neither could do it alone.
  2. Courage means acting while you're scaredEthan is terrified, and he runs toward danger anyway to protect his family.
  3. Curiosity drives discoveryMaggie's questions unlock how the ChronoStone works.
  4. Curiosity needs cautionPressing runes without understanding them let a T. rex into the present.
  5. Own your mistakesMaggie admits what she did, and she stays to fix it.

In the classroom

Ideas for teachers & librarians

Build the Time Map

Put each book's destination on a classroom timeline and a world map. How far back is 66 million years compared with 1969?

Check Maggie's sources

Pick a Field Note, find its source in the References, and look it up together. It's a first lesson in how to tell where facts come from.

Write your own Field Note

Students research one true fact about a place or time, write it in a kid's voice, and cite where they found it.

Full transparency

How these books are made

We think kids, and the grown-ups who read with them, deserve to know how the things they love are made. Every ChronoStone book ends with this same honest story.

The idea & direction
The ChronoStone Saga, its world and its characters were created by author Keith Mason. He directs every book and decides what goes into it.
The writing
The stories are drafted with help from AI writing assistants, ChatGPT (by OpenAI) and Claude (by Anthropic). They help brainstorm, draft and revise. The author reviews, edits and approves every chapter.
The art
The pictures are made with AI image tools: the first character designs with Midjourney, and the book illustrations with OpenAI's image models. Every image is guided by the series' character reference sheets and checked for consistency and accuracy. Does Rex have his red collar? Does the T. rex have tiny two-fingered arms?
Research & fact-checking
AI tools help find and check sources. Every fact in the Field Notes and the Historical Facts section is backed by a published source in the References, so you can look it up yourself.
Why we tell you
AI is a powerful new tool, like the printing press, the camera and the computer before it. Used well, with a person in charge, honesty about how it's used, and care about the facts, it lets one storyteller build a whole world for young readers. We're proud of that. A person is responsible for everything in these books, and if you find a mistake, we want to hear about it.