Litnerd (YC S21) – Kids Book Club Meets Gaming
Hi HN! Anisa here from Litnerd (https://www.litnerd.com). We’re a reading club for kids. It’s been two years since our first HN launch and I am back today to share some updates we're extremely excited about. Litnerd is an online reading club program with a weekly live meetup to help students make reading a lifelong habit. Think of us as “book club meets gaming”. New books go live weekly, and each book has movie adaptations, music, reading courseware, mini lessons with a virtual teacher and worksheets. There are reading tournaments every month to recognize the top reader. The goal…
In plain words
Litnerd is an online reading club program for children that combines weekly live group meetings with gamified learning elements. Each book includes movie adaptations, music, virtual teacher lessons, and worksheets to engage young readers. The platform features monthly reading tournaments where students compete for recognition, earning virtual currency called "Litcoin" along the way. It's designed to foster reading as a lifelong habit by making literary content interactive and entertaining through multimedia and community participation.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN! Anisa here from Litnerd (https://www.litnerd.com). We’re a reading club for kids. It’s been two years since our first HN launch and I am back today to share some updates we're extremely excited about. Litnerd is an online reading club program with a weekly live meetup to help students make reading a lifelong habit. Think of us as “book club meets gaming”. New books go live weekly, and each book has movie adaptations, music, reading courseware, mini lessons with a virtual teacher and worksheets. There are reading tournaments every month to recognize the top reader. The goal of our app is to create a fun and engaging way of cultivating a child’s natural curiosity by bringing the subject matter to life (movie adaptation of books with real actors, cartoon animation, enacted experiences) and through gamification—our community is obsessed with earning “Litcoin” (yup, we actually did this and it really works!) and winning monthly tournaments. Here’s a video that shows how Litnerd works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSVjWi-rE8k. Here’s a video I made for parents, summarizing what’s new with our product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mniVUWx6tvM, and here is an older video that gives you a quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1wdk9ofb5w. When we did our Launch HN back in 2021 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28300640), we got two prominent themes of feedback. One was B2C access—you asked us to open the app for parents to buy directly rather than selling it only to schools. The other was that it gave you massive Diamond Age vibes. I read the Diamond Age. It gave me chills. Thank you! Originally, Litnerd was only sold to schools, and teachers had to administer the product in classroom time. We were also streaming live actors into the classroom to reenact books and build interest and fun. Now, our program is a standalone web app used by both schools and parents (B2C access is live—thanks HN!) We no longer stream live actors into classrooms, but rather have films and cartoons in-app to bring the book to life, all filmed in our Brooklyn studio. We also have original soundtracks for each book, in both the app and on Spotify. Our product is now used by kids primarily after school hours—and the average kid is spending 30 minutes in the app daily! Parents in our first B2C cohort commented on how this is the only educational app their child wants to use without being pushed by a parent/teacher. With just 4 months of Litnerd usage, students improved comprehension by 72% and phonics improvement by 48%. Your child is auto-enrolled in a cohort when they sign up. They are also auto-enrolled in the current reading tournament of the month. The goal is to earn the most amount of Litcoin so that you can win tournaments and go shopping in the Litnerd Store. To earn Litcoin, your child does 3 things. First, they complete at least 15 minutes of daily reading. Second, they have daily reading tasks, such as quizzes and worksheets to build vocabulary and comprehension. Third, they attend a weekly live (virtual) meetup with their cohort. Why a live meetup? The Litnerd Reading Club is a community experience with a weekly meetup (if you miss the weekly meetup, you miss out on a lot of Litcoin earning potential). This ensures kids using the app feel like they are in a classroom or pod experience. Each child is entered into a cohort when they enroll, and each week your child will meet virtually with other kids in their cohort and discuss the book they are reading with our special guest (which might be the author of the book, an actor from the movie adaptation of the book, a literacy coach, etc). Here is a video to show what happens in these cohort sessions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOcybwyGelo We have so much more to build out our version of the Primer from Diamond Age and inspire millions of kids, just like Nell, to fall in love with…
More life & fun this month
the category →- TL
Life & fun · 10d ago · louisabraham.github.io
Photosynthesis fires two of your iPhone
Life & fun · 28d ago · photosynthesis.camera
SoloUno▲310Take control of hair pulling, nail biting & skin picking
Life & fun · 28d ago · solouno.io
Scroll through all 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 reachable Rubik's Cube permutations.
Life & fun · 26d ago · everycube.alen.is
Hi HN, I built Eigendrum, a web tool that solves the 2D wave equation for arbitrary shapes so you can hear what they sound like as drums. How it works: * Solves -∇²u = λu using finite element analysis (Kφ = λMφ) on a triangle mesh. * Validated to <0.1% error against closed-form solutions for circles (Bessel zeros) and rectangles. * Sound model factors in strike location, Rayleigh damping, and mallet width. * Includes Kac drums I & II to demonstrate identical sound spectra from different geometries. * No frameworks, build steps, or dependencies. Repo and tests:…
Life & fun · 27d ago · baselashraf81.github.io
Launched alongside, June 2023
the whole month →- NI
Heya HN, I've been working on a reddit-like platform as my primary side project for the last few years. Doing a (very) soft launch today, mainly because I want to use it to encourage discussion of alternatives. How non.io works: 1. Free to browse, paid to interact. 2. Minimum subscription is $2 (though you can choose more). I take $1 to run the servers, everything left gets split evenly between everything you upvote that month. It's a simple model, but I hope it's a better one than the freemium model we've been relying on for the last few years. Fundamentally I feel like any ad-supported…
Commerce · 2023 · non.io
Typefully 2.0▲931Effortlessly publish on Twitter and LinkedIn, now with AI
Growth · 2023 · typefully.com
SlashPage▲760Create websites in seconds to build your first 1K community
Growth · 2023 · slashpage.com
