The Cube Chronicles A 15-book time-travel adventure

A 15-book middle-grade series

History is a door. The cube is the key.

When the Carver children pry up the floorboards of an old backyard shed, they find a strange nine-sided cube — and it carries them, one civilization at a time, across the entire ancient world. From the building of the Great Pyramid to the crossroads of the Silk Road, The Cube Chronicles is a time-travel adventure about family, craft, courage, and coming home.

Explore the Books Start with Book One

15 books · ages 8–12 (middle grade), enjoyed by whole families · by Jeremy Tinder

The story

One family. Fifteen years. The whole ancient world.

The Cube Chronicles is a fifteen-book middle-grade series in which three siblings from a close-knit, faith-filled family discover a mysterious nine-sided cube beneath their backyard shed — a cube that carries them across the ancient world, from the building of the Great Pyramid to the crossroads of the Silk Road, one civilization and one hard-won lesson at a time.

A nine-sided cube, discovered beneath the floorboards of an old shed, warms and glows a new configuration roughly once a year. When it activates, it carries the Carver children into a real ancient civilization, where they live, learn a craft, make friends, and come home changed. The series follows the children and their parents across fifteen years and fifteen destinations toward the still-unbuilt center of a spiral the cube has been drawing all along.

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The complete series

The bookshelf

All 15 books & filters →
Book 9 Cover of The Rain, The Cedar, and The Rivers of Silver — The Cube Chronicles Book 9 of 15

The Rain, The Cedar, and The Rivers of Silver

Ancient Pacific Northwest Coast (an Indigenous salmon-culture society) · ancient-pacific-northwest-coast

The ninth light is silver-green and never stops moving — rippling like a fish run through rain-dark forest. It carries the Carver children to a coast of cedar-plank great houses and rivers so full of salmon that wealth arrives every year without being earned. But abundance brings its own hard lessons: about crests you may not wear, songs you may not sing, and a carver's question that follows Simeon home — what is the making for?
Book 10 Cover of The Fire, The Threshold, and The Stranger at the Door — The Cube Chronicles Book 10 of 15

The Fire, The Threshold, and The Stranger at the Door

Ancient Anatolian highlands (a Hittite-inspired mountain pass and guest-hall) and the Carver family's home in the Carolinas · ancient-anatolia-bronze-age

A doorway of fire calls the Carver children into the coldest crossing yet — a mountain country where a law older than kings commands every household to feed, warm, and shelter the stranger at the door, even their enemy, and where a fire has burned unbroken for a thousand years so that no traveler ever arrives to a house that has stopped waiting for them.

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Start with Book One

When fourteen-year-old Simeon is given the job of tearing down his family's old backyard shed, he uncovers a strange nine-sided cube buried beneath the floorboards. Before he understands what it is, the cube pulls Simeon and his sisters Beckah and Ellie out of their quiet 1986 summer and into the middle of ancient Egypt, where the Great Pyramid is being built stone by stone. Far from home and unable to speak the language, the three siblings must rely on each other, and on a few unexpected friends, to survive and find their way back.

Ancient Egypt, the Nile Valley near the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza; framed by the Carver family's home on Oakdale Road in 1986 · 8–12 (middle grade)

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Follow the map

A journey through the ancient world

Each book crosses to a real historical civilization. Here is the road, in reading order.

  1. 1 Ancient Egypt (the Nile Valley, the Great Pyramid of Giza) Old Kingdom Egypt, c. 2560 BCE
  2. 2 Classical Athens (the Parthenon and the Acropolis) Golden Age of Athens, 5th century BCE
  3. 3 Mohenjo-daro (the Indus Valley Civilization) Bronze Age, c. 2600–1900 BCE
  4. 4 A Yellow River highland village (early Bronze Age China) Early Bronze Age China, c. 1900 BCE
  5. 5 A Jōmon fishing and pottery village (ancient Japan) Jōmon period, c. 2500 BCE
  6. 6 The city of Ur (ancient Sumer, Mesopotamia) Ancient Sumer, era of Abraham
  7. 7 A high terraced village in the Andes Pre-Columbian Andes (Inca-era)
  8. 8 An Amazonian food-forest civilization Pre-Columbian Amazonia
  9. 9 The Pacific Northwest salmon coast Ancient, pre-contact
  10. 10 The Anatolian highlands (a mountain caravanserai) Bronze Age / Hittite-era highlands
  11. 11 Minoan Crete (an unwalled palace town) Bronze Age Aegean
  12. 12 The songline country of Aboriginal Australia Ancient oral-tradition country
  13. 13 The open Pacific (ancient Polynesian wayfinding) Ancient Pacific voyaging era
  14. 14 A Silk Road crossroads city Ancient Silk Road era
  15. 15 The center of the journey — the road home The culmination of all crossings

What the series is about

Themes that run through every crossing

  • family
  • history
  • faith
  • craft and honest work
  • courage
  • responsibility
  • hospitality and generosity
  • homecoming

The Carver family's faith is woven warmly through the series. A guiding presence they call “the Maker” is spoken of with reverence but is never depicted as a character — a restraint we keep across the whole site.

For parents, educators & librarians

Real history, family-friendly adventure

The Cube Chronicles is written for middle-grade readers (about ages 8–12) and enjoyed as a family read-aloud. Every destination is grounded in a real civilization, with authentic detail about how people built, farmed, wrote, healed, traded, and made music. There's no graphic violence, no profanity, and no romance — just adventure, curiosity, and heart.

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Common questions

Selected series FAQs

What is The Cube Chronicles?

The Cube Chronicles is a fifteen-book middle-grade historical time-travel adventure series by Jeremy Tinder. It follows the Carver family — three siblings and their parents — after the children discover a mysterious nine-sided cube beneath their backyard shed that carries them across the ancient world, one civilization per book.

How many books are in the series?

There are fifteen books. The series is complete, running in reading order from Book 1 (ancient Egypt) to Book 15 (the culmination of the journey).

Do the books need to be read in order?

We recommend reading in order. Each book is a self-contained adventure to a new time and place, but the family's story, relationships, and running threads — Daniel's yearly "wisdoms," Beckah's record-keeping, the cube's growing pattern — build from book to book, and the emotional payoff is richest in sequence. Book 1 introduces the family, the shed, and the cube, so it is the best place to start.

What age group is the series for?

The series is written for middle-grade readers, roughly ages 8 to 12, and is frequently enjoyed as a family read-aloud by younger and older readers alike. The vocabulary is rich and the history is real, which also makes the books useful for classrooms and homeschool.

Is the series appropriate for a family read-aloud?

Yes. The books are family-centered and family-friendly, with no profanity, no romance, and only mild adventure-level peril. They are written to be read aloud across ages, and each book explores discussion-worthy themes about family, work, and character.

Who is the author?

The series is written by Jeremy Tinder, author of The Cube Chronicles. He writes the Carver family across the ancient world and has said that the foundation of every good story, like the foundation of every good building, is love.

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