Bestselling author Dori Hillestad Butler brings teleportation to life in her new middle-grade series.

ELLA PORTER, TELEPORTER
by Dori Butler
Aladdin/Simon & Schuster, TBD 2025
(via JABberwocky)

Meet spunky nine-year-old named Ella, who lives with her mother after her father died when she was young. Ella never met a rule she didn’t want to break. Her favorite thing is to do secret acts of random kindness with her best friend, Manny.

One day Ella meets her dad’s uncle Geoff and learns a family secret. Some people on her dad’s side of the family can teleport. Ella has part of the family mark—a dot on one of her pinkie toes. Ella can’t teleport at first, but if she develops the ability, she and her mother are to alert Great Uncle Geoff immediately and he will train her properly at his home.

Great Uncle Geoff lives alone at a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Ella is intrigued by the idea of teleportation, but the last thing she wants to do is go live with a stranger in the middle of nowhere. So when Ella discovers she can indeed teleport, she doesn’t tell anyone other than Manny. She decides she doesn’t need to be trained. She’s doing just fine figuring things out on her own. And by being able to teleport, she and Manny can now do even bigger secret acts of random kindness than they were ever able to before.

But teleportation doesn’t always work the way Ella wants or expects it to. She doesn’t always feel so good after teleporting. She doesn’t always end up exactly where she thinks she will. And sometimes it doesn’t even work. She’s also been almost caught teleporting. More than once.

When Ella is finally caught teleporting by her mother, she must admit the truth about her powers and learn how to use them properly.

Dori Hillestad Butler has published magazine stories, educational materials, plays, book reviews, characters for a board game, and over sixty children’s books. A two-time Geisel Honor Book winner for King & Kayla and the Case of the Missing Dog Treats and King & Kayla and the Case of the Lost Tooth, she has also been nominated for children’s choice awards in nineteen different states and won the 2011 Edgar Award for the best juvenile mystery for Buddy Files: Case of the Lost Boy. She lives in Washington.