Purple Inkwell Studios / Original Worlds 03
Ladybird Jenkins and the Time Thieves
What happens to a world when its memories begin to disappear?
In the luminous realm of Indovia, memory is more than a record of the past. It is what holds reality together. When the mysterious Time Thieves begin altering history, Ladybird Jenkins and her students must discover who is changing the truth, and why.
What happens to a world when truth is controlled, fragmented, or erased?
01 / Behind the Story
From Page to Panel.
Ladybird Jenkins began as an exploration of memory, imagination, and the strange ways knowledge shapes the worlds we believe in.
The writing and visual development grow together. Characters, symbols, environments, and the technology of Indovia are developed as parts of the same world.
Every new drawing asks another question about the story. Every chapter reveals something else that needs to be imagined.
In Indovia, an illustration is more than a picture of a place. It is another way of remembering it.
02 / The World
Welcome to Indovia.
Imagine a civilization where memory can be explored, where history exists in living threads, and where technology and mythology have become inseparable.
At the center of this world stands the Indovian Academy, a place where students learn to investigate the past, confront uncertainty, and understand the responsibility that comes with knowledge.
But Indovia is changing. Entire histories are being altered. The boundaries between memory and reality are beginning to fracture.
Somewhere within those fractures are the Time Thieves.
03 / The People of Indovia
The Guardians of Memory.
Some mysteries cannot be solved by one brilliant mind. The students of the Indovian Academy bring different perspectives, abilities, and ways of understanding a world that no longer agrees with its own history.
Mentor / Guide
Ladybird Jenkins
An educator and guardian of knowledge whose responsibility is not simply to protect the past, but to prepare a new generation to question it wisely.
The Students
Saffron & Riley
Two members of the Academy's young ensemble, learning to navigate a world where evidence, memory, and personal experience do not always agree.
The Students
Ben, Koji & Pip
Three more voices in an ensemble whose collective strengths matter as much as individual brilliance.
Central Artifact
The Prism
An extraordinary artifact capable of bringing conflicting truths into relation. But bringing them together is not the same thing as making them identical.
Antagonistic Force
The Time Thieves
A mysterious force associated with fractured memory, suppressed history, and the distortion of shared reality.
Central Question
Who Owns the Truth?
When history is contested, preserving knowledge requires more than deciding which version should survive.
04 / Beneath the Adventure
The Psychology of Truth.
Beneath the adventure lies a question that belongs as much to our world as it does to Indovia: how do we know what to believe?
I / Memory
Remembering Is Not Simple.
Memories preserve experience, but they can also be incomplete, misunderstood, or manipulated. The students must learn to investigate rather than accept every apparent certainty.
II / Identity
Different Minds. Different Strengths.
Each student contributes a different way of seeing and solving problems. Curiosity, careful observation, imagination, and unconventional thinking become essential to the group's discoveries.
III / Responsibility
Knowledge Has Consequences.
Preserving history involves moral choices. Who decides what matters? Can forgetting protect someone? When does safeguarding knowledge become controlling it?
05 / The Literary Series
Five Books. One Living World.
Each planned novel introduces a new mystery within Indovia while contributing to a larger story about truth, memory, identity, and responsibility.
Ladybird Jenkins and the Time Thieves
Memory, misinformation, the formation of the team, and the integrity of a shared history.
The Prism Paradox
Dual timelines, conflicting histories, and the instability of personal identity.
The Echoes of Tomorrow
Legacy, emotional consequences, and the unsettling possibility of the future reshaping the past.
The Vault of Shadows
Institutional secrecy, betrayal, and fractures within the institutions entrusted with protecting knowledge.
The Spiral Hourglass
Sacrifice, the authorship of memory, and the final question of who decides what survives.
06 / Creative Learning
Learning Beyond the Story.
The books come first. But the questions inside Indovia also create opportunities for thoughtful reading, collaborative storytelling, and creative exploration.
Media Literacy
Stories and activities that encourage young readers to question information, identify distortions, and examine how evidence shapes belief.
Creative Problem-Solving
Puzzle-based adventures, glyph journals, narrative challenges, and character-driven exercises that invite different approaches.
Emotional Literacy
Exploration of perspective, belonging, empathy, communication, and the importance of listening to people whose experiences differ.
Collaborative Foundations
Creative experiences developed in partnership with The Hive, a nonprofit supporting autistic adults, have informed the project's approach to collaborative storytelling and inclusive character creation.
Those experiences reinforce an important principle behind the series: different perspectives are not obstacles to a shared story. They can be the reason that story becomes richer.
07 / Creative Vision
Why This Story.
A world can lose its history long before anyone notices that something has disappeared.
Ladybird Jenkins is a story about the responsibility that comes with knowing something.
In an age when information can be copied, altered, and distributed almost instantly, I wanted to imagine a world where those changes have physical consequences.
Indovia allows those questions to become an adventure. Memory can be explored. Competing accounts of history can be confronted. The act of finding the truth becomes something characters must do together.
The young characters are not expected to think alike. Their different ways of learning, observing, questioning, and interpreting the world are essential to the story.
At its foundation, the series is about giving young readers permission to be curious, to disagree thoughtfully, and to understand that knowledge carries responsibility.
Indovia may be imaginary, but the questions its students face are not.
The First Edition / In Development
Every story leaves a trace. Some change everything.
Ladybird Jenkins and the Time Thieves is in development as the opening novel in a planned five-book middle-grade speculative adventure series.
Follow Purple Inkwell Studios for manuscript updates, original artwork, and future publication announcements from the world of Indovia.
Inquire About the SeriesRELEASE DATE AND PREORDER DETAILS HAVE NOT BEEN ANNOUNCED.
08 / Literary Property
Publication Profile.
An overview of Ladybird Jenkins and The Indovian Academy Series as an original middle-grade literary property.
- Book Title
- Ladybird Jenkins and the Time Thieves
- Series
- Ladybird Jenkins & The Indovian Academy
- Author / Creator
- April Martin
- Genre
- Middle-Grade Speculative Adventure / Science Fantasy
- Intended Reader Age
- Ages 9–12
- Series Plan
- Five Books
- Current Status
- Manuscript and Series Development
- Primary Setting
- Indovia / The Indovian Academy
- Central Ensemble
- Ladybird Jenkins, Saffron, Riley, Ben, Koji, and Pip
- Principal Antagonistic Force
- The Time Thieves
- Central Artifact
- The Prism
- Core Themes
- Truth, memory, identity, information integrity, inclusion, ethical technology, and collective responsibility
- Educational Possibilities
- Media literacy, emotional literacy, creative writing, problem-solving, and collaborative storytelling
- Publication / Preorders
- Not Yet Announced
Ladybird Jenkins and the Time Thieves is an original middle-grade speculative adventure novel in development as the first book of a planned five-book series. Series titles, manuscript specifications, publication format, release schedule, and educational companion materials may evolve during development. Professional inquiries are welcome.
Writer & Illustrator / Purple Inkwell Studios
April Martin
Original Stories. Original Worlds.
April Martin is a Kentucky-based writer, illustrator, photographer, arts educator, and founder of Purple Inkwell Studios.
Her work draws on psychology, mythology, memory, and the human condition to create original literary and visual worlds.
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE VETERAN
ARTS EDUCATOR
FOUNDER / PURPLE INKWELL STUDIOS