FREE INTERACTIVE STORY · AGES 8–10
The Clockmaker’s Apprentice: a free interactive story
In Clockwork City, the great clock in the square loses exactly one minute every day, and the trains, bakers and airships are starting to run late. Our hero, the clockmaker’s new apprentice, makes two choices about how to investigate, and each path finds a different cause and a different fix.
- Reading age 9
- 2 short chapters, 2 choices and 4 endings
- About 3 minutes
- Invention and discovery
Read the story
Choose your hero
Paint it your way
Chapter 1One minute late
Clockwork City ran on gears: gears in the bridges, gears in the trains and, at its heart, the enormous gears of the great clock.
Amir had been the clockmaker’s apprentice for exactly one week when Master Ottilie came down to breakfast looking worried.
“The great clock is losing time,” she said, stirring her tea without drinking it. “One minute every single day, never more and never less.”
One minute did not sound like much. But after a week, the morning train was seven minutes late, the bakers’ bread was overdone and the airships were missing their moorings.
“I’ve checked every gear,” Master Ottilie sighed. “Fresh eyes might see what mine can’t. Where would you start?”
What happens next is up to your child
Where should Amir begin the investigation?
Questions for grown-ups to ask
Did you spot it?
- EasyHow much time did the great clock lose each day?Answer: Exactly one minute.
- MediumWhy did a small delay cause big problems?Answer: It added up: after a week the trains were seven minutes late, the bread was overdone and the airships missed their moorings.
- HarderIn “Too light”, why did the lighter weight slow the clock even though weight doesn’t matter much?Answer: It was fixed lower down, making the pendulum longer, and a longer pendulum swings more slowly.
Talk about it
- Which clue did you follow? Could more than one cause have been true at the same time?
- Master Ottilie says fresh eyes might see what hers can’t. When has someone new helped you notice something?
Words to talk about
- apprentice
- Someone learning a skill by working with an expert.
- mechanism
- The working parts of a machine.
- pendulum
- A weight on a rod that swings to and fro, keeping a clock on time.
- hesitate
- To pause for a moment before doing something.
Reading it together
The Clockmaker’s Apprentice is written at Litsee’s reading level for age 9. Each path finds a different, real cause of a slow clock (a weight on the pendulum, heat making metal longer, the pendulum’s length, the tower moving), so the endings reward careful thinking.
Each part of the story has a real fact card about British inventors and railways from the Litsee app’s fact bank, with its source. Ada Lovelace and Tim Berners-Lee are good names to look up together afterwards.
Make a pendulum from string and a small weight and time ten swings. Then make the string longer and time it again. Your child will see for themselves why the length matters.
About this story
- Reading age
- 9 (ages 8–10). Written for Litsee’s reading level for age 9, where sentences are mostly 10–18 words long.
- Length
- 2 short chapters, 2 choices and 4 endings. Each way through is 298–314 words.
- Reading time
- About 3 minutes for a 9-year-old reading on their own, at Litsee’s pacing of 120 words a minute for that age. Reading aloud to your child is usually quicker.
- Book band
- Roughly Grey, if your child’s school uses book bands (schemes differ; see our book bands guide).
- Characters
- Master Ottilie, the clockmaker, Pim, a pigeon who lives in the clock tower, the airship captain
- Theme
- Invention and discovery