VIOLA, IDAHO / ACCESS Newswire / March 3, 2026 / From Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, twenty copies of an interactive book-as-toy, The Thin Door, are off on a marathon cross-country Bookcrossing race. Specially marked copies of this teen read are being "released into the wild" in public places from coast to coast where they can be "caught" or found. Each book is labeled with its own unique Bookcrossing ID number, and finders who register their book find on the official Bookcrossing website can track how far and fast their copy of the book is traveling.

The bookcrossing.com site, now in its 25th year, is a playful way to share books across wide distances. If you happen to "catch" this traveling Thin Door, be sure to register your find at bookcrossing.com, using the unique ID on the inside cover, and the Bookcrossing site will track the books as they travel. You may be part of the fastest book crawl, eligible for prizes.

Inside the front cover of The Thin Door are ideas to personalize, customize, and add to the story before releasing the book out into the wild again. The Thin Door comes prepped with prompts, and a special inside label adds more ideas on how to interact with the book. Book finders are encouraged to send a photo of their creative work on the page for a draw for free ebooks. The most traveled book, and the most inventive original art and journal work will win free ebook prizes. (No prizes for entries that Holden Caulfield would not show his kid sister Phoebe.)

"In an age of reduced reading, this is an especially interesting project for me," says author Rho Weber Mack. "Book designer Lisa Kerans and I thought a lot about creating the visual cues to lead even a reluctant reader through the story. I am especially curious to see the personalized pages of book finders."

The cross-country bookcrossing crawl of The Thin Door will end in one year, in February 2027. The marathon release of The Thin Door is an experiment to see how widely a book can travel in one year, who plays, and how. For one year, we will see what book finders do with their found copy of The Thin Door.

The Thin Door is a striking and unconventional young adult novel that blends coming-of-age fiction with introspective, almost mythic storytelling," says Kathryn Dare of the Seattle Book Review. From its opening pages, the book signals that it will not follow a standard narrative path. Instead, Rho Weber Mack invites readers into an experience.

At the center of the story is Ramie, a young girl navigating a world that feels both familiar and deeply unsettling. Wearing her red hoodie and riding her battered bike, she slips through the "thin door" into a reality that echoes fairy tales, psychological landscapes, and modern adolescence all at once. The book's loose allusions to Little Red Riding Hood are used thoughtfully, not as a gimmick, but as a framework for exploring vulnerability, independence, and the loss of assumed safety. Wolves, swallowed grandmothers, and liminal spaces become metaphors for very real fears and emotional truths.

One of the novel's most distinctive strengths is its form. Mack plays with structure in a way that feels intentional and meaningful rather than experimental for its own sake. The dual-track layout, where main text is accompanied by margin prose, mirrors Ramie's internal world and her attempts to escape, cope, and make sense of what she's experiencing. This visual and narrative layering reinforces the book's themes of fragmentation, inner dialogue, and the thin boundaries between reality and imagination. It's a design choice that deepens the reading experience and encourages readers to slow down and engage more actively with the text.

Emotionally, The Thin Door is both heavy and hopeful. The story does not shy away from difficult subjects, including fear, isolation, and the confusing emotional terrain of growing up. Yet it never feels exploitative or overwhelming. There is a clear sense of care in how these themes are handled, and the novel often feels less like it's delivering answers and more like it's opening doors for readers to ask their own questions. This quality makes the book particularly well-suited for discussion, whether in classrooms, book clubs, or therapeutic settings.

Mack's prose is lyrical without being indulgent. The language is accessible but purposeful, with moments of quiet beauty that linger after the page is turned. The world Ramie moves through is dreamlike but grounded in emotional reality, making it easy for readers, especially young adults, to see themselves reflected in her confusion and courage.

Overall, The Thin Door is a memorable and thoughtfully crafted interactive novel that stands apart from more conventional YA offerings. It will appeal to readers who enjoy stories that challenge form, invite introspection, and trust the reader to participate in meaning-making. This is not a book to rush through; it's one to sit with, revisit, and talk about. In that sense, it feels less like a single story and more like an open invitation to step through the door and see what waits on the other side.

The Thin Door is available as a paperback and ebook via www.bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, and also Amazon.

Contact Information:

Rho Weber Mack
www.webermack.com
[email protected]
substack@thedoorbetweenworlds
bluesky@wordward

SOURCE: Rho Weber Mack



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