Mission 2: Unexpected Visitors has been removed from its February 2024 release date. It will now have new chapters set in 1832, showing Jeb’s and Liza’s life as enslaved pre-teens. This will replace merely relating their story to Sophia and Pedro after their time travel to 2022. The new chapters will include more details of their escape to freedom on the Maritime Underground Railroad. This includes meeting their fugitive aunt, now a Maroon in the Great Dismal Swamp. The modern chapters will undergo minor changes to accommodate the new additions.
Two Upper Middle-Grade historical spinoffs are planned. First, the story of Elijah Kingman, Sr., who was enslaved in the Hudson River Valley during colonial times. He was emancipated as a reward for fighting in the American Revolution. A skilled printer, he walks to New York City and takes up residence in what would become Five Points. He marries a free Black woman and has Elijah. When the father is murdered by angry whites, his son pursues a life as a sailor, a profession in which free Blacks could achieve some status. He moves up in ranks to sail larger boats, ultimately ending up in Edenton, NC, where he meets the twins’ mother.
A second spinoff details Elijah Jr’s search for the twins in New York City if, by some miracle, they arrived there. It will cover his life from 1832, through the Race Riots of 1834, his work in abolition, and the creation of the Seneca Village.
The major series of Sophia of the Bright Red Sneakers will now have Sophia, Pedro, Jeb, and Liza as young teens taking on New York City and the world beyond.