Now Available on Amazon: The Duplicate Disaster by Reed Seedwood

We recently welcomed children's author Reed Seedwood to Palmista Press and introduced his wonderfully chaotic new series, The Impossible Experiments of Nico Neutrino.

Now we're delighted to announce that the experiments have officially begun.

Book One: The Duplicate Disaster is now available on Amazon as a Kindle eBook.

The Duplicate Disaster — Available Now on Amazon

A Story You Read AND a Puzzle You Solve

Nico Neutrino has a laboratory.

Technically, it's his bedroom.

But it has experiments, scientific equipment, mysterious inventions and a small robot assistant Nico built himself, so we're willing to call it a laboratory.

There is just one problem.

The robot has no arms.

The arms definitely exist. Nico built them.

Unfortunately, Nico's laboratory is such an unbelievable mess that he can't find them.

And that's where the reader comes in.

The Duplicate Disaster combines an illustrated children's story with a puzzle adventure in which young readers become part of Nico's experiments.

Read the story. Discover the problem. Turn the page. Solve the puzzle.

Then continue the adventure.

Nineteen Chapters. Nineteen Puzzles.

Every chapter leads to something the reader needs to find.

Turn the page and there's a big, packed illustration waiting to be searched.

But Reed Seedwood hasn't simply repeated the same hidden-object puzzle nineteen times.

Children might need to find two objects that are exactly the same, locate something that has disappeared, identify three or more matching objects, spot the odd one out, count particular items, discover several different pairs or find two matching pieces hidden far apart.

The challenge changes as the story progresses.

And there's an important idea underneath all that searching:

Children have to read the instructions to know what they're looking for.

Reading isn't something they do before the activity.

Reading is how they solve it.

Nico Only Wanted to Duplicate His Lunch

Of course, finding Botnic's missing arms is only the beginning.

Nico eventually builds a machine designed to duplicate things.

What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, apparently.

Nico only wanted to duplicate his lunch.

Instead, the machine produces a purple chicken.

Then it produces two.

Then Dad eats the wrong drumstick and turns purple from head to toe.

And that's before the aliens arrive.

Science can be unpredictable.

Especially in Nico's bedroom.

Real Science Hidden Inside the Silly

The Impossible Experiments of Nico Neutrino is designed first and foremost to be fun.

But underneath the purple chickens, missing robot parts and experiments gone spectacularly wrong are some genuine lessons about science.

Young readers encounter ideas such as:

Safety first. Every time.

A tidy laboratory makes experiments more reliable.

A good scientist observes carefully before deciding what has happened.

A theory is an idea that can be tested.

And perhaps most importantly:

Experiments don't always produce the result you expected.

Sometimes that's how you learn something new.

Sometimes you get a purple chicken.

Speaking of the Purple Chicken...

There's one more game hidden inside the book.

The purple chicken appears in some of the illustrations even when she has absolutely nothing to do with the actual puzzle.

Finding her isn't required.

There are no instructions telling children where she is.

She's just being cheeky.

Observant readers can keep an eye open throughout the adventure and see how many times they can spot her.

Nobody Gets Left Stuck

All puzzle answers are included at the back of the book, so young readers can check their solutions or get some help if a particularly sneaky puzzle defeats them.

There's also a What Did We Learn? section at the end, bringing together some of the ideas Nico encounters during his experiments.

The result is a book designed to encourage reading, observation, concentration, problem-solving and curiosity while never forgetting the most important ingredient:

Fun.

Made for Ages 5 to 9

The Duplicate Disaster is designed for children approximately 5 to 9 years old.

It's lovely to share aloud with a younger child who can then tackle the illustrated puzzles, while newly confident readers can work through the story and instructions independently.

It's also the kind of book that can come in very handy during quiet time, rainy afternoons, waiting rooms and long journeys.

Although we'd recommend keeping experimental duplication machines out of the car.

And This Is Only Book One

The Duplicate Disaster is the first of five planned books in The Impossible Experiments of Nico Neutrino series.

And readers won't have to wait long for another experiment.

Book Two: The Factory Fiasco continues Nico and Botnic's adventures as they go searching for a Super Power Cell inside an enormous robot factory.

Naturally, nothing goes according to plan.

But first, there are nineteen puzzles, one very messy laboratory, a homemade robot, some unexpected aliens and at least one extremely suspicious purple chicken waiting in Book One.

The Duplicate Disaster is available now as a Kindle eBook on Amazon.

Read The Duplicate Disaster on Amazon

Welcome to The Impossible Experiments of Nico Neutrino.

Read the story. Solve the puzzle. And whatever you do, keep an eye on that chicken.