Ray Taylor and the Torn and Tattered Treasure Map

WINNER of The Readers' Favorite 2025 Book Award in Children - Fantasy/Sci-Fi (Bronzel Medal)
WINNER of The PenCraft Best Books Award for Fall 2025 in Young Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi
WINNER of The Author Shout Book Award Top Pick 2025
WINNER of The Literary Global Book Awards in Children's Fiction 2025
Finalist of The Literary Global Book Awards in Fantasy & SCI-FI 2025
The 2025 Gertrude Warner - Chanticleer International Book Awards Short List for Middle Grade Fiction

5 STARS Readers' Favorite
N. Degen's skill in storytelling is evident in the way the tension and pace are maintained throughout the book, ensuring readers are constantly engaged.

The story includes themes of friendship, loyalty, and the importance of perseverance.

The story challenges vocabulary and presents moral dilemmas, stimulating critical thinking and empathy.

It teaches valuable life lessons and portrays a hero who is brave, kind-hearted, and persevering.

It's recommended for those who love tales of adventure and discovery.

He was just an average kid… until the map of a hundred kings' treasure called his name.
Ray Taylor – an average school boy from a small town who, to his great disappointment and regret, happens to be below average in height – is growing up with his pediatric nurse mother, and without a father, whom he misses very much. Pestered by the bully Murrayand his pals, he is saved from the daily grind of school routine by his love of drawing, something that his sketch-filled notebook and the constant complaints of his teachers attest to. But there is a special secret that he can only entrust to his best friend, retriever Buddy. Yet there is something that beckons him even more than hisartwork, and his first, timid infatuation with his classmate Jane – that is the search for infinite treasures.

By a stroke fate, having been detained in the home of a strange elderly neighbor, Ray finds himself in the company of 17th century cutthroats and takes his place as the seventh and, as it so happens, missing member of a crew of pirates. On board of the schooner Celestine, Ray sets off on dangerous and captivating adventures across the seven, in no way resembling each other, distant worlds, in search of the seven glowing magical stones hidden there.

It is these magical stones that, instead of seven keys, open the seven chests that lie undisturbed in a grotto on a mysterious, paradise-like island of Tuki-Tuki, on the bottom of which repose the seven parts of the torn and tattered map of the buried treasures. The legends promise the daredevils, who have reached the grotto, treasures fit not just for a single king, but enough to satisfy the desires of an entire hundred kings. Their way is guided by the dead Bloodthirsty Cook himself, through the pages of his Secret Book. Battling the devils in hell, at cards, bad-mouthing and cursingCaptian Archie and his crew, Cook reveals to Archie each new step, but only after Archie undergoes ordeals, on dry land and on the high seas. Crowning all of these is the puzzle of Cook himself. Where should they sail to and where should they search? All the hidden answers would be revealed in The Secret Book, if only all of its pages weren't left entirely blank...
Set sail with Ray on a dazzling, danger-packed voyage across seven mysterious worlds—and discover how even the smallest hero can unlock the greatest treasures.
👉 Grab your copy now and dive into the epic first adventure aboard the Celestine!