The day a broken king inspired a chess book for children

It was an ordinarily hyperactive babysitting afternoon.

My little nephew spotted the most fragile thing in the room—a glass chessboard asking for attention, and before I could put it away, there was a clink! The King! In pieces! As I stared at the empty space where it once stood, our cheeky one, without missing a beat, reached for the closest resembling thing - a tiny perfume bottle - and placed it on the e1. The bottle became the king, there were two armies, figures got their names, and before I knew it, we were fully immersed in a story.

A pawn named Ellis made the first move, and a tale of the (typically uneventful) opening suddenly became fun. That's when it hit me—the theory is vast, so if a chess opening could be illustrated through a short story, would it help my little one understand and remember it? Would it help others?

Is storytelling an !? or a !! move?

Let's face it—learning chess openings by studying and practising the sequence of moves can be a bit meh. But something magical happens when you turn it into a story. Immersing children (and those who feel so) in stories of an imaginary land makes learning fun. It's not just about memorizing moves; it's about remembering an adventure our pieces went through. This approach made one young boy learn the opening without even trying.

But first, mastering the battlefield 

After the perfume bottle-turned-king incident, inspiration was so high that stories followed one another. The manuscript for the first book, Chess Adventures – Open Games, was completed within less than a month. It assumed the reader already knew how the chess pieces moved. That, in a way, felt like telling a saga from the plot, missing an introduction... how can you jump into battle if you don't even know who your comrades are and what their skills are?

But here's the thing: plenty of resources already teach how each piece moves. Maybe there will also be a Chess Adventures book about that one day. Or not.   What typically gets overlooked, however, is something equally important: understanding the board. New chess enthusiasts usually know how to steer the pieces, but ask them to name the square they're standing on the unlabeled chessboard, and it's like speaking a foreign language!

And that's how the Chess Adventures – Mastering Battlefield was born, taking the crown of the first-published book in the series. Mastering Battlefield doesn't focus on how to navigate the pieces (most of us here probably got that down). Instead, it's about the ground they move on. It helps us learn how to memorize the squares, record past moves, calculate upcoming ones and, eventually, figure out who's winning the game, relying on something more than a gut feeling. The idea is to equip young adventurers with a battlefield map before diving into the chess openings in the following books. 

The concept

Here's where the real magic happens: Chess Adventures books don't just leave you with a captivating story. Each chapter also includes technical explanations, checklists and easy-to-understand formulas to help youngsters lock down key concepts. After the story, they'll find exercises to practice what they've learned, ensuring the knowledge really sticks. That being said, Chess.com's material is priceless and undoubtedly plays a significant role in my nephew's life. It was only natural to point our young readers to Chess.com learning pages to practice using interactive exercises and solve puzzles.

When it comes to gameplay, however, the engine does most of the otherwise manual work for the over-the-board old-school me, which has its benefits but somewhat limits the learner in getting the comprehensive picture. Therefore, each chapter contains pages dedicated to readers taking handwritten notes of the moves, jotting down their own conclusions, and tracking their progress as they work through the practice drills.

The final chapter of my babysitting days

For a few months, babysitting time flew by, with my nephew returning for more chessboard stories. But once the deliveryman handed us the hardcover book filled with those stories, magical illustrations and step-by-step guidelines, my presence became...well, optional. The chessboard, the book, and, of course, the tablet (with you-know-exactly-what on the screen ) took over from there. 

This book series aims to instil this kind of empowerment in young chess enthusiasts, and thanks to Danny and Sam, who proposed and wholeheartedly encouraged this post, more of you now know that there are fairytale pages in the bookstore that could help.

Until we meet at the board again,

Lena Mi