THE BOOKS

THE FIRST THING KAL HEADED FOR inside the Javits Center was the table of Minecraft books. In the videos, he jumps up and down while he tells the two people at the booth about which books he already has how much he loves them.

Madeline Strum Photography

He had not seen Mobestiary before because it would not be on store shelves for at least another month, so he knew what he wanted to buy. “Mobestiary is introduced by a person who lived in game and talks about ancient legends,” he says. It covers every mob, animal, and boss in the game at the time it was written.

Kal has a lot of Minecraft books—handbooks, guides, activities, and novels. The fi rst chapter book he ever read was Minecraft fan fi ction about a character named Gamerknight99. The author, Mark Cheverton, was at a few cons Kal attended, but we never met up with him.

Kal charges toward The Island booth

Madeline Strum Photography

Of all the Minecraft books he has, Kal says his favorite are the narratives—especially the series promoted by Mojang: The Crash, The Island, and The End.

Kal explains: “The Island has nothing outside the game. It’s better than the others, like The End and The Crash. All those are better than Gamerknight99 because there’s nothing the characters are trying to accomplish outside the game. The Crash was similar to Gamerknight99, achieving things inside and outside the game.” (All of the books have different authors and characters.) “The Crash you know who they are. The Island doesn’t give you many details about the narrator. The End, you know that they think they’re Endermen and then they realize they are people—completely different people.”

Back when he used to play and watch StampyCat on YouTube, Kal needed to save his money from the tooth fairy to purchase the guide books for farming and potions. “You learn to farm mobs and plants because you don’t want to use all your coal and run around all day when you could just raise chickens. You don’t do much harm to the environment then,” Kal explained.

“The first one I needed to have of the new ones was Enchantments and Potions.” Like farming, potions has fascinated him.

While he hasn’t played the game in forever, he has all the books still—some even right next to his pillow.

More books on the Show Floor

Madeline Strum Photography

Boom would be more than happy to learn how to build cat castles

Madeline Strum Photography

There were a lot of red balloons at the convention inspired by IT

Madeline Strum Photography