The beloved children's book series "Chime Travelers" has now made an exciting leap from page to screen with its development into an animated TV series, bringing its imaginative world to life in a whole new way.
Known for its blend of adventure, time travel, and meaningful life lessons, the Catholic series has captivated young readers with its charming characters and heartfelt storytelling for over 10 years.
"Chime Travelers," written by Catholic author Lisa Hendey, follows twins Patrick and Katie as they travel to different places and time periods — all thanks to some magical church bells — to learn valuable life lessons from the saints.
Developed by Family Theater Productions and Herald Entertainment, the new animated series depicts the same stories from the book series and includes episodes on St. Patrick, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clare of Assisi, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, and the Holy Family.
In an interview with EWTN News, Hendey said she's "absolutely thrilled with the outcome" of the animated series.
She shared that she had been in conversations with Family Theater Productions — a Catholic production studio in Hollywood — since 2017 about adapting the books for television.
"They really saw at an early point the potential for the books to become a very dynamic [series], something even bigger than what they were as books, and it's been a long path enough to get to where we are now," Hendey said.
Father David Guffey, executive producer of "Chime Travelers" and the national director of Family Theater Productions, told EWTN News that he believed this series needed to be made because there aren't many options in terms of Catholic media for children.
"If you look at all the media that's out there, there's not much for Catholic children," he said. "There's a lot for Catholic teens. There's a lot for Catholic adults. There's not a lot of Catholic children's programming. And we decided just to take a risk on this animated series so that there'd be another option for parents that wanted something solid to show their children."
While the book series only included five stories, the animated series will have more saint stories made into episodes for future seasons. For these additional stories, Hendey is serving as a consultant.
"I'm so delighted that they continue to involve my voice and to give me the chance to say, 'Well, I don't think my character would say that, or have we tried this, or have we thought about this?' But the new stories are — they're so exciting because they're brand-new. I didn't write books about them," she said. "And now the question will be, do we adapt books from those or what happens next?"
Guffey, who is also a biblical consultant on the hit series "The Chosen," said he believes the rise in popularity in faith-based movies and shows being created has "been a long time in coming."
"For a long time, executives in Hollywood didn't believe that Christians were an audience," he explained. "They didn't believe there was a faith-based audience and so they were very reluctant to fund or distribute projects. We've had some big signs that there is an audience. Christians have proved themselves."
He highlighted "The Passion of the Christ" as the faith-based movie that opened the doors for other faith-based films to be created and "The Chosen" for doing the same for faith-based television series.
"Christians and Catholics are showing they will seek out the kind of content that suits their families and their faith. And that's going to change Hollywood — the business side of Hollywood especially," Guffey added.
The Catholic priest also emphasized the importance of creating faith-based media specifically for children.
"With an adult show, adults will watch it once and they're done. But with children's shows, if they're of any quality at all, children will watch them over and over and over again. So, these shows and these stories really form young people in a really significant way," he said.
Hendey added that she's grateful "we have now programming that's not only faithful — because we always wanted to be faithful and we always wanted to really speak to the truth and the beauty and the goodness of our Church — but also that's fun, that's compelling, that kids want to watch over and over again."
As for her hopes for the series, Hendey said: "I hope that the kids who watch this, in particular, understand the agency that they have in their own lives to learn valuable lessons from the community of saints and to be a force for good in our world. We need them. We need their hearts and their purity and the love that they have, and so I hope they feel emboldened to realize that they really can make change in their world and in our world."
Guffey added: "When you're a kid, you think the problem you're going through, you're the only one that ever had it and you think you can be a very lonely place. I hope the series shows that first of all, Katie and Patrick go through some of the things they go through at school or at home, but also that the saints and the people who've gone before us have gone through the same thing. And we can draw on the wisdom and the experience of others to gracefully move through the problems, the troubles that we encounter in our lives today."
"The lives of the saints are the lives of the Gospel in action. And I think it's important that children see how faith is put into practice," Guffey shared. "And when we tell the stories of the saints, we are really telling the story of people who put their faith into practice in the good times and in the more difficult times."
