For school librarians.

I came to you first because I grew up in a library.

I'm the son of an elementary school librarian. I watched her do the job up close for years. I know what school librarians actually do, which is why you are exactly who I want to hear from first.

I love stories. Writing them, reading them, illustrating them, telling them, bringing them to life. I built Twisty Town, a free K–5 storytelling playground, so kids could do all of that themselves, in whatever form their storytelling wants to take.

You've seen every program under the sun. I'm not going to promise you a miracle. I am promising you something genuine, something free, and something built by someone who cares about nurturing the storyteller in every kid, whatever form that takes.

Imagine a YouTube Kids star coming to your school and kicking off something amazing.

Interested? Good.

Now imagine the amazing part isn't the show. It's what the kids get to keep after the show ends.

I'm Mr. Twisty. The YouTube Kids hit show Mr. Twisty's Storytime Adventures is mine. 44,000 subscribers, millions of views a year, and a kid audience that already knows my voice before they ever see my face.

Here's what that actually means for you: a real chunk of your students walks into your school already excited about me. That's not vanity. That's leverage. My whole job, professionally, is to take the enthusiasm kids have for me and aim it at storytelling. Every episode is a book becoming an adventure. Every week I try to get another million kids to experience reading the way you want them to: not as an assignment, but as somewhere to go.

So I built Twisty Town, a free digital storytelling playground, so that aim keeps working after I'm off-screen.

It's live right now at twistytown.com. No accounts. No ads. No fees. No email required. No data collected. Ever. Any school, any home, any after-school club, any summer camp, any homeschooling family, any kid on the planet with a device can walk in. You can cast it on a smartboard during library time tomorrow and most of your kids will recognize me the moment they hear my voice.

That's the thing you can use tomorrow. That's the "amazing." The live version, which I do get to later on this page, is how a school lights the fuse.

Before I ask you for anything, one personal beat, because it's relevant.

My mom was one of you.

She ran an elementary school library for more than thirty years. For much of my own childhood, she ran the one I attended. Before school I was at the circulation desk with her. After school, in the stacks. Sick days, on the bean-bag chair with a pile of picture books. Summers, paid in paperbacks.

She did the work you do. She read aloud like she meant every word. She paid attention. She matched kids to books based on what she actually heard them say, not the poster that came with the curriculum. She built the conditions for a love of reading, and then she respected whatever a kid did with them. Every day. For three decades. With every kid who came through her door.

My parents saw early that I was a performer. My mom made sure I had something worth performing about.

One day I told her I was bored. She gave me the sideways look that only librarians can do, stacked on top of the sideways look that only mothers can do. She was both. The effect compounded. Then she said this:

There are over 72,000 books in this library. Every single one is an adventure waiting for YOU to open it. How could YOU be bored?!? – My mom. The sentence that turned me into a storyteller.

That sentence has been in me for forty years. It's in my show. It's on this website. It's going in my will.

A librarian is the reason I am any good at any of this.

So in her honor, I built her a library back.

Not a replica. A new kind of library, built for the thing she spent her life trying to hand me and every kid who came through those doors. Not just the habit of reading. The skill of telling. Of writing. Of illustrating. Of performing. Of being funny on a page. Of getting a story wrong and trying again.

That library is Twisty Town.

A scrapbook page from Chad's first 'book', showing him as a young child reading.
Me, with my first book.
(More on that below.)

Here's what I'm asking.

Fifteen minutes at twistytown.com. Walk around it the way a skeptical kid would, because a skeptical kid will. Click a room. Click another. Try to break something. Then hit reply on the email that brought you here, or use the Circle form at the bottom of this page, and tell me what you saw.

I want librarian-grade feedback, not polite feedback. The specific, unflattering, half-formed observation you'd share with another librarian over coffee but hesitate to send to a stranger: send it to me anyway. That's what I can actually do something with.

Things I genuinely want to know: Does a kid understand what to do in the first five seconds of each room? Does the reading level meet kids where they actually are? Does the Comedy Clubhouse read funny, or just weird? Is there something missing that you've been waiting for someone to finally build?

Why librarians first: no one in the building sees more programs, runs more experiments with more kids, or develops a more reliable gut about what works. You watch kids read for a living. Your reaction tells me whether this is any good faster than a principal's would.

Why now: the bones of Twisty Town are set. The details are not. Whatever I hear from librarians in the next few months shapes what ships for 2026–2027. After that, course changes get harder.

👉 The ask, restated: 15 minutes at twistytown.com, then one honest reply.

The rest of this page is the proof. Read on if you want it.

📖 The receipt.

My mom's first book. I was the subject.

I know how the whole "I grew up in a library" framing could read. Warmly on one reading, suspiciously on another. So here is the artifact.

When my mom was in library school, her program required her to produce a picture book. She asked four-year-old me to walk her around the house and point at every spot I liked to read in. She took the photos. Typed the captions. Bound the pages. A few years later, in fifth grade, I recycled that book into my autobiography project. It has been in a binder in my mother's house for more than three decades. I am looking at it right now.

Scrapbook page: young Chad reading alone in a chair and in bed.

“All alone.”

Scrapbook page: Chad reading in the family car.

“In the rain or in the sun.
In the car.”

Scrapbook page: Chad reading on the floor with a stuffed animal, and reading in front of a TV.

“Wherever I am.
Instead of TV. Try it, you'll see!”

✨ The last page The final scrapbook page: young Chad reading in bed, and reading with his mom. Captions read 'When day is done. Reading is fun!! These are times I read and I had fun doing this with her.'

“When day is done. Reading is fun!!
These are times I read, and I had fun doing this with her.”

My mom made me the subject of her first book. Then she quietly made me the protagonist of it: a kid for whom every corner of the house was worth reading in. The closing page, with her in the frame, is the whole thing in one picture.

I was, as they say, raised for this.

What you'll find inside.

Six rooms. Each one does a different piece of the work that storytelling actually does.

If your library has five working computers and nothing especially interesting to put on them, there is now something to put on them. If your students go home to households without books, there is now a library they can walk into without leaving the couch.

The in-person side. Entirely optional.

I also show up in person as Mr. Twisty. Same striped shirt. Same propeller hat. Same dachshund (her name is Penny). A lot of comedy magic. Live visits come in two flavors.

None of this is required. Twisty Town stands perfectly well on its own. The live programs exist for schools that want to turn the launch into a building-wide event. They are also, candidly, how I pay the bills so Twisty Town stays free for everyone else.

Learn more about Reading is a Magical Adventure →

One more honest thing.

Being honest

A recommendation from you carries weight in your district. I'm aware of it. I'd rather name it than pretend I hadn't noticed. That is half of why I'm writing librarians first.

So let me also say this plainly. There are no gifts, no gift cards, no swag, no referral kickbacks. I wouldn't offer them, and you couldn't accept them. If Twisty Town or the assembly ever earns your recommendation, it has to earn it on its own merit. That is how it has to be. It is also, honestly, how it works best.

So come take a look. Tell me the truth. If you want to be part of shaping what comes next, there is a small group for that.

The Librarian Circle, in plain terms.

A small group of K–5 school and public librarians who want to be in the room while I'm still building. Here's what being in it means, stated plainly so there's nothing hidden:

Coming soon, and in your court.

A library-themed StoryQuest is on the way for the 2026–2027 school year. Kids solve mysteries inside a fictional library. Yes, the heroine is loosely based on my mom. I'm shameless about what inspires me.

More importantly, if there's a gap in your library that a free digital tool could actually fill, whether that's an adjacent language, a specific reading level, or a topic your students keep asking for that nothing on the shelf is answering, tell me. I read every one of those notes. If I can build it into a future update, I will.

If you want in.

Join the Librarian Circle

Email me with your name, your school, and one thing you think I should know about your students or your library. That's the whole form.

chadcurrin@gmail.com →

Not interested in the Circle but have feedback anyway? Send it to the same address. I read every one.

Thanks for reading to the end.
Chad (Mr. Twisty)