A young racer character pausing mid-adventure, a small wrinkle crossing their face as they sort through a tricky thought about themselves
A colorful illustrated cover showing a young racer character holding a hand-drawn map, looking thoughtful and curious in the Rubberdale world
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A New Map

Something small happens to your racer that gives them a trickier thought about themselves—and you get to help them figure out what's a fact, what's a feeling, and what a truer thought might be.

ConfidenceResiliencePerseveranceSelf-ManagementSelf-AwarenessRubberdaleCBT

About This Story

What your child will experience

Best for kids ages 5-8. In A New Map, your child steps into the Rubberdale racing world and helps their favorite character work through a small but real internal wobble — a trickier thought about themselves.

Through a series of gentle choices, your child helps the character notice where the thought came from, sort fact from feeling (a core Wanderly framework), and build a truer, kinder thought to carry forward. Nobody is mean, nothing breaks — the challenge is entirely internal, which is exactly the point.

Why this approach helps

This story does CBT-style work in first-grade language: noticing a thought, questioning it, and replacing it with something more accurate — not forced positivity.

By practicing this alongside a character they already love, children begin to build the habit of pausing between a hard moment and a hard thought. Over time, this supports emotional vocabulary growth, self-compassion, and early cognitive flexibility.

The kinder thought emerges through the story rather than being declared upfront — because that's how it actually sticks.

Your child will be growing into being able to do this themselves over the next few years, but even if they aren't yet ready to examine their own thoughts yet, reading a story like this now can introduce them to the pattern so it's ready later.

What to notice as a parent

  • Which trickier thought your child picks can be a quiet window into thoughts they may hold about themselves in real life — worth a gentle "Do you ever feel that way too?"
  • How they name the feeling shows you where their emotional vocabulary is growing — or where it might need a little support.

Personalize This Story

Make this story truly special by adding these details:

  • ✓Choose a racer.

Story Questions

Questions your child may be asked while creating this story:

  1. Where do we find the main character today?
  2. Which trickier thought sounded like one the main character might have?
  3. What feeling might the main character be having right now?
  4. Which one of these is the feeling kind — the in here kind?
  5. The trickier thought sounded like a fact. But was it really?
  6. Which kind thought does the main character want to keep?

Loved by Families

Join thousands of happy families who've empowered their children with personalized, interactive stories.

“At first I thought it was one of those bedtime ploys to stay up later, but when the request came again first thing in the morning I realized it was just genuine excitement about Wanderly. My two kiddos - ages 7 and 8 - had a blast selecting their adventure pals (they have the cutest "pets" that go on the adventure with them) and choosing the direction of the story every step of the way. I turned up the reading level today and it was neat to see my son work through a few new words and stick with it because he was so excited about his story.”

— Taryn S

“My son couldn't put the story down!”

— Sebastian

“We've been using it every night for bedtime stories for our 3 year old.”

— Matt

“Ok, so I installed this yesterday, and I've already read 5 stories with my 4 year old. That's over an hours worth of time. Today he tried to negotiate to have me read 4 in a row... He's fully engaged, and takes his time over the choices - I think that and the funny moments in the stories are what have him hooked. He lost it when our cat (yes, you can include your pet in a story!) turned into a elephant. As a parent, it's whimsical and a welcome change from the regular books in rotation. I was initially unsure about using my phone to engage him during bedtime, but he entrallment quickly overcame that. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to others.”

— Simon

“It's been fantastic for creating and sharing our stories with beautiful art. What a great keepsake!”

— Shayla

“My dyslexic 4th grader struggles with reading and comprehension. She is finally excited to read using Wanderly!”

— Bill

“As an lifelong educator, I give this app an enthusiastic 5 stars+. With opportunity to choose and name characters, type of story and plot ... what could be more creative? What could be a more productive use of screen time? I love that this app was created and is carefully monitored by a Mom of young kids. She also happens to have technical/AI chops ... she was a Google Product Manager in their Education Products sector. The graphics are quite lovely, the story lines are fun and age-appropriate.”

— Helen

“I'm very impressed with the ease with which I was able to write a fun (and colorful) story. I wrote one for my grandchild and can't wait to share it with her.”

— Bill

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