When thirteen-year-old Asha Okonkwo touches the gold letters of her grandmother's weathered atlas, the room folds away - and she finds herself in Babelonia, a world where every district is shaped by the structure of a language concept.

Words are going missing. A silent something is erasing them, one by one. With her cousin Kian and a new friend from Guatemala, Asha must learn how words truly work - how they are borrowed, built, and made new - before an entire world forgets how to speak.

Filled with real linguistic history, accurate examples in seven languages, and a warm cast of characters, The Word Market is the first book in The Translator's Atlas - a six-book middle-grade adventure series that treats grammar and language not as a rulebook, but as a world worth saving.

For readers ages 10-14.