The Blue Caverns

The temporary title of the story I’m writing for my little boy. I have about four months to pick a better one. That should be enough time, right?

Anyways, since I’ll be posting bits and pieces for feedback, I thought it would be a good idea to post some kind of summary. One other note: this is meant to be gender neutral, just in case my son gets a little sister in the future, and just in case the ultrasound tech was wrong and I end up having a girl instead. It’s not easy writing this way and it can get rather irritating always having to wonder would a boy and a girl react the same way, but I figure it’ll all work in the end.

So…

Alex is a bored ten-year-old out at the zoo with his classmates. He loves adventure, but there’s none to be found under the watchful gaze of his teacher and the chaperones, his father included. But a quake interrupts that boredom and the appearance of Robin Hood and his niece Lizzy attracts his attention. They say the fairy tales, myths, and legends are real. Or, they were at one time. Long ago they had retreated from this world and found another home where they can live in peace. Only that peace is threatened now and they don’t know how or why. Robin Hood just needs their help, but Alex’s father forbids him from joining the search/rescue group Robin is forming. He thinks his chance at adventure is over, but then he discovers Lizzy, who was supposed to stay behind, is missing, but her big sparkly blue dress is not. What’s he to do but go through the mysterious door in the penguin enclosure and find her to return her dress?

It’s a whole other world in there. The blue caverns are vast and there doesn’t seem to be a way out of this blue maze. That is, until he hides from Robin’s group and inadvertently finds a blue door. Without another thought, he goes through and embarks on his journey through various fairy tale, mythological, and legendary worlds, stories he’s heard and known that he now gets to come face to face with. But Lizzy is still missing, Robin’s group seems to be eternally circling through the blue caverns, and there’s something trying to destroy this storied world. And the blue dress Alex is stuck carrying around (it helps him find the blue doors between the story worlds) is starting to get heavy.