Static on Channel Nine
Grade 7 · Chapter book
Static on Channel Nine
Written and illustrated by PlayOwl
A school radio club hears faint beeps on a channel that should be empty. Tracking them down takes a hula hoop, a rainy Thursday and one hard vote.
- 22 pages
- 4,592 words
- Long read
For grown-ups: what this book practices, and where it comes from
What this book practices
An original present-day mystery driven by real radio ideas: frequency, interference, why a signal fades, and finding a transmitter with a loop antenna. Practices testing two explanations against evidence, and weighing privacy, rules and kindness when they pull apart.
- Level
- Chapter book: Seven chapters, about 210 words on a page
- Themes
- Mystery, Science, School, Community, Kindness
- After the story
- A short activity checks understanding, then a prompt to tell a grown-up about the book.
Levels are PlayOwl's own design guidelines for each grade, not a certified reading level. In I'll Read, PlayOwl records that a child turned every page; it cannot hear whether the words were read.
Credit and rights
Written and illustrated by PlayOwl.
- Cover
- Drawn in code for PlayOwl in 2026 with the Read with Olly illustration kit. An original design. Original work owned by PlayOwl.
- Illustrations
- Drawn in code for PlayOwl in 2026 with the Read with Olly illustration kit, from the picture briefs in this file (a school clubroom with an old radio, a soccer field, a street of small houses, a garden shed with a solar panel). Original designs. Original work owned by PlayOwl.
- Narration
- Spoken by the reader's own device voice. PlayOwl ships no recording. No recorded work exists.
- Text
- Written for PlayOwl in 2026. An original story; every sentence is new PlayOwl wording. Original work owned by PlayOwl.
