The Inventor's Desk

Breathe First, Talk Second: The Behavior Script Inside Book 13

Guidance and challenging behavior is NAEYC's most-read topic. Book 13 hands a toddler the three-step script that early childhood educators keep asking for.

The QR Code Is the Take-Home: Family Engagement Without Another Newsletter

NAEYC and California both name family engagement as a core practice. The series' answer is one question, one activity, and one MP3 per book, behind the QR code in the back.

A Book Plus a Grown-Up Beats a Tablet Alone: Screen Time, Co-Viewing, and the Free Read-Aloud Audio

The NAEYC and Fred Rogers Center position statement on technology draws one line that still holds: passive screen use alone is out, interactive use with an adult can help. Here is how to use our fr...

Name the Feeling First: What California's Preschool Foundations Ask, and How Bao Does It

California's 2024 preschool foundations put emotional knowledge in the first strand of social-emotional development. Book 4 is built around one question that does exactly that work.

Show and Tell Is the Readiness Skill Nobody Tests: Kindergarten Transition and Books 17 and 20

NAEYC devoted its Spring 2026 magazine issue to the preschool-to-kindergarten transition, and California now offers transitional kindergarten to every four-year-old. Book 17 is about the one skill ...

Reading Aloud at Bedtime: What More Than 20 Years With Inventors Taught Me About Curiosity

A patent attorney on the surprising overlap between bedtime story habits and adult inventor habits.

Andrea Beaty's Questioneers vs. Kit's Little Sparks: Which Age Is Right?

How the two series fit together. Short answer: Kit's Little Sparks is the prequel age. The Questioneers are the next chapter.

A 50-Book Library That Grows With One Child From Age 2 to Age 12

Four age-tiered series, one inventor's journey. Here is the full map of the Kit's Little Sparks universe.

Why I Wrote 20 STEM Books Instead of One Picture Book

The publishing math, the developmental math, and the patent-attorney math all pointed the same direction.

Stereotype Threat Is Real by Age 6. Here Is What We Read Before Then

By kindergarten, kids have already decided who is good at math, who builds things, and who reads. A preschool co-founder on what to read in the years before that door closes.