Most chess books for kids fall into one of two camps. There are the instruction manuals — diagrams, notation, "White to move and mate in two" — which are excellent if your child already loves the game and useless if they don't. And there are the story books where chess is a piece of scenery: a tournament, a trophy, a wise old teacher, but nothing you actually have to think about.
Checkmate tries to be a third thing. It is a choose-your-path gamebook — the kind where you read a short section, make a decision and jump to the numbered section it sends you to — and six times along the way, the story stops and puts a real chess position in front of your child. What happens next depends on the move they choose.
What the story is about
You are Nico. The Old Tower Chess Club is closing down, and in a sealed box from the storeroom there is a board with a half-finished game, a photograph from 1986 and a handwritten note: "One move was missing." That night, the streetlights of the neighborhood come on in the shape of a chess position. The streets cross at right angles. A crane moves in a straight line and never turns. The whole neighborhood has become an eight-by-eight board, and it is somebody's turn to move.
From there, every section ends in a decision. Do you follow the pattern of the streetlights, or go and find your friend Lia? Do you go into Mirror Alley, or follow the hooded figure? Do you give up the rook, or keep it? There are over 12 endings, and only one of them finishes the game of 1986.
Does my child need to know how to play chess?
No, and this is the part that matters most for parents. Every rule is explained just before it is needed, in the story, by a character who has a reason to explain it. A child who has never touched a chessboard can read the whole book. A child who already plays will recognise the positions and enjoy the challenges more — but they will not find the explanations patronising, because they are short and they are part of the plot.
The six chess challenges are real positions, with the board printed right there on the page. Your child looks at it, picks a move, and turns to the section that move leads to. A wrong move is not a dead end — it sends them to a section that shows why it did not work, and gives them another go. That is, quietly, how a good chess coach teaches: not by telling you the answer, but by letting you see the consequence.
Why the gamebook format suits chess so well
Chess is already a choose-your-path game. Every move is a branch, and the whole skill is thinking one or two branches ahead. A book built out of numbered sections and decisions mirrors that structure exactly, so the story and the game reinforce each other instead of taking turns. When Nico has to decide whether to sacrifice the rook, the reader has already spent twenty pages learning what a rook is worth.
It also solves the biggest problem with teaching chess to a seven- or eight-year-old: attention. A lesson lasts as long as the child's patience. A story lasts as long as the child wants to know what happens next, which is usually a great deal longer.
Who it is for
- The child who just started a chess club at school and comes home with rules half-remembered. The book fills in the gaps without feeling like homework.
- The puzzle kid — the one who likes working things out, escape rooms, riddles. The neighborhood-as-chessboard mystery is built for them.
- The reluctant reader who is good at games. Short sections, a decision every page, and a real challenge to beat. It reads a lot more like a level than a chapter.
- Ages 7 to 12, reading alone or with a parent. The chess positions are a natural place to stop and talk it through together.
The practical details
Checkmate is book 24 in the Decide Your Destiny series, written for ages 7-12, with full-colour illustrations inside. It comes as a Kindle ebook ($3.99), paperback ($10.99) and hardcover ($29.99). Like the rest of the series, it is designed to be replayed: once your child has finished the 1986 game — or failed to — there are paths and endings they have not seen yet.
Get Checkmate on Amazon, browse the full collection, or try the format first with our free gamebook, The Portal. And if you are new to the whole idea of gamebooks, this guide explains what they are and why kids still love them.