The Constitution KidsThe Constitution Kids
An imagined scene of Alex, Kali, Roman, and Benjamin Franklin flying together above a moonlit town.

About the book

The Constitution Kids

An unexpected adventure. A magical book.
A new way to see the Constitution.

Read the opening chapterRead the back cover

AI-generated story illustration. Not artwork from the printed book.

An ordinary summer becomes anything but ordinary

Summer has just begun, and fifteen-year-old friends Alex, Kali, and Roman are looking for something to do. A protest over books in their local library draws them into a much bigger question: what do their constitutional rights actually mean?

Kali discovers a worn leather book called The Living Constitution and urges her friends to try its extraordinary journey. Alex wants to know how they will get home safely; Roman wants to understand how the book transports them. Their different questions turn a shared discovery into an adventure beyond the library.

Benjamin Franklin brings them to the Constitutional Convention. Alice Paul guides encounters about expression and protest, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg introduces courtroom protections and taking property for public use. Later encounters raise questions about enslavement, citizenship, equal protection, and who gets to vote. These are fictional encounters, not historical quotations or biographies.

Gary Gabel combines history, humor, and unusual encounters in a story about asking questions and discovering why the Constitution still matters. Follow the three friends as their ordinary summer becomes anything but ordinary.

Drag to spin

The story begins here.

Alex, Kali, and Roman are three fifteen-year-old friends who live in a small town. Alex is a great communicator, Roman is a bit of an inventor, and Kali is an intuitive empath. It’s summertime, and an adventure is triggered when they find themselves in the middle of a protest outside the local library by people who want to ban certain books. During the protest, people are focused on what they believe to be their Constitutional rights, causing the three teenagers to realize how little they know about the Constitution.

In their search for answers, they discover a book with magical properties, which becomes a catalyst in helping them discover what the Constitution is really all about.

Join the teenagers as this mysterious book enables them to travel through time and space—bringing to life historical figures like Ben Franklin, Wyatt Earp, Alice Paul, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and many more. Each of these historical figures will teach them about the original Constitution and its amendments. Through the eyes of the three teenagers, you’ll be able to explore what it was like when the original Constitution was signed. You’ll even travel to other countries, like Russia, where you’ll meet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in a field within the Gulag where he was imprisoned.

The Constitution, by itself, can be a difficult document to read, but The Constitution Kids will bring it to life with unusual experiences, humor, and fun, no matter your age.

Image details

Original book-cover artwork. Digital book model and matching still rendered with Three.js; still captured October 8, 2026. No generative image editing.

Is this your next read?

For readers drawn to friendship, unusual journeys, and questions about power and participation, the novel blends adventure, humor, and constitutional ideas. Read the opening chapter to decide whether its voice and subject matter are a good fit.

The story also includes firearms, violence, child deaths, enslavement, racist language, and persecution. Families and reading groups may want to preview the material and leave room for discussion.

The paperback

The Constitution Kids by Gary Gabel

ISBN 979-8-89138-390-6
Mascot Books / Amplify Publishing Group

Chapter 1 is free. The complete online reader requires access; see the book options for what is included.