This month he’s released three new chapter books for early readers 6 to 10 years old. The Recipe for Adventure series includes “Cornstalkers,” “Kite Boy,” and “Ghost Pets.” Each 80-page mystery/adventure book features short large-print chapters with minimal illustrations.

“My wife Jolyn is a retired teacher,” Dr. Burt said. “She and I are big on literacy and felt we needed interesting, slim books that aren’t too daunting. We want kids to read books that interest them, so they develop their skills. So we created these little novels with pages that are 80% text and 20% percent a mix of illustrations and white space. Our belief is these chapbooks should be more about reading what resembles an adult book, not a mostly visual comic book or graphic novel. Early readers need to be able to finish a chapter and be left with a sense of accomplishment. We love hearing them exclaim, ‘Mom, Gram, look, I read a whole chapter.’ Some will even say, “Dad, Grandpa, I read this whole book in one day. Where’s the next one?’”

The series concept is simple. Each book introduces different middle-school characters who receive a Recipe for Adventure kit. In “Cornstalkers,” Gram orders a kit for the grandson and granddaughter staying at her rural Maine farmhouse. The kit comes by mail and contains seven unique corn kernels, six eyepatches, some other items, and a vague set of instructions. These will help them follow a live scarecrow and help an E.T. who yearns to “Go Home.”

In “Kite Boy,” three kids go to a carnival, where one of them wins a bottom-tier prize. It’s a Recipe for Adventure Kit with a kite shaped exactly like a flying boy. The kite helps them locate a child that has wandered away from a campground.

In “Ghost Pets,” three middle-schoolers back out of a larger group’s full-moon pizza party in a graveyard. They take their pizza to a park instead and discover a Recipe for Adventure kit taped under the box’s lid. Inside are a party magician’s coupon good for two free balloon animals, an odd-shaped soap bubble wand, three pairs of 3-D movie glasses, and four cups of Gold Medal flour, all of which will help them locate two ghost pets eager to lead them to their missing owner.

“The storylines are a stretch for adults, but early readers find there’s a mix of adventure and mystery,” Burt says. “We don’t want plots for little kids to be scary—these aren’t Stephen King novels—but they need to be imaginative and hold kids’ attention all the way through. Our jobs as author and editor is to offer them something more interesting than a school textbook, a story that will help them learn to love reading.”

Steve Burt’s Recipe for Adventure books are available on Amazon.com and at all Sherman’s Book stores on the Maine coast. He will debut the series at his book tent during the Summer Solstice Arts & Crafts Festival July 13-14 at Wells Junior High School on Route 1.