Children’s books are close to our hearts because we read every night with each of our three children - it’s like a family ritual, a special part of the day. She was very smart and resourceful, and outwitted every baddie in the jungle. Every night, Jon would make up another episode in a long-running series about a girl who lived on a pyramid and all her best friends were monkeys. The Jaguar Stones trilogy was always going to be for kids because it was inspired by our son’s favorite bedtime story. What interests you about writing for kids? As the internet works itself into a frenzy about the end of the Mayan calendar Max must save the world from the Lords of Death, who now control the power of the Jaguar Stones.

Together they encounter smugglers, ancient kings, perilous underground rivers, secret passageways, and more, for fate has delivered a challenge of epic proportions. The first book in The Jaguar Stones trilogy, Middleworld, focuses on 14-year-old Max Murphy, who finds himself reluctantly traveling through the jungles of the Maya-complete with haunted temples, zombie armies, and human sacrifice-in order to save his parents, both Maya experts and archaeologists He meets Lola, a modern day Maya girl, who helps him unlock the secrets of the Jaguar Stones. They’ve canoed underground rivers, tracked howler monkeys in the jungle, taken a Maya cooking course, talked to contemporary Maya people and met with leading Maya archaeologists-all in order to provide a rip-roaring adventure for children and an accurate portrayal of an incredible civilization. Over the last four years, authors Jon and Pamela Voelkel visited over twenty Maya sites across Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Middleworld by Jon Voelkel