Eileen Robinson from Reycraft Publishing (beginning in 2019) has been focusing on authors with diverse voices. In a Zoom webinar at the 2021 Virtual ALA Annual Conference, Robinson spoke with Luther Tsai, the author of the Magic Mirror Time Travel Series. In this series, geared toward children ages 8-12, the settings are from historical times that are underrepresented.
“Jump into history and mystery,” says Tsai. Because that is what characters Marko and Miranda do when they use a Chinese magic mirror to travel back into history. The historical time periods that they travel to are mostly in Asia. But stay tuned, more books are coming with new locations. Robinson mentioned that the books include meeting new people, friendships, and on building up one’s vocabulary.
At the end of the session, Robinson and Tsai explained activities to do with children that center around Tsai’s books. One craft children could do is to make their own magic mirror. Other supporting resources are YouTube videos of the book and websites that dive more into the stories setting.
Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.