A booboo alert has been sounded.

Katie Vieira’s 6-year-old and 3-year-old are outside pretending to light a fire with two rocks, and one has sustained an owie.

It’s a natural outcome for kids playing outside versus staying glued to their iPads, and Vieira is OK with it.

“Those are one of the risks,” said the Elbert resident, who also has an 8-year-old.

Vieira is the author of “Into the Field: Tennessee Summer,” a new self-published children’s book about that very thing: getting kids to embrace the outdoors instead of their screens. It’s available at Barnes & Noble and online through bookseller websites and katievieira.com.

Vieira will do a book signing, story time and scavenger hunt from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. June 13 at Barnes & Noble, 3173 Cinema Point in Colorado Springs.

In the book, aimed at kids ages 4-10, readers meet Claire and Finley, two sisters who start playing a new video game, and unexpectedly meet George, who’s stuck in the game and can’t figure out how to get out.

“It’s an analogy to those kids who can’t separate reality from virtual reality,” Vieira said. “He has to lean on his friends, who are brought into the game to help him. They’re teaching him outdoor skills and teamwork to help him pass the level, and he’s learning those great life skills.”

The book also includes field guides, which provide ideas for outdoor activities, like building a shelter on a hike, discussion questions, science projects, field trips and interviews with park rangers.

Vieira, a homeschool mom and former fourth-grade teacher and literacy trainer, has seen up close what she calls a literacy crisis in America, due to kids being on iPads and not reading.

“They’re leaning more toward that instant gratification rather than the slow-paced inspiration in a book,” she said.

The long-term effects of screen addiction, prevalent in both kids and adults, aren’t known yet, but Vieira sees the dangers, including a lack of creativity. She saw it beginning in her own kids, who threw tantrums when she tried to pull them away from their iPads to go outside, or when they asked to go home and play on their iPads rather than be at the playground.

A few years ago, the family embarked on 1,000 Hours Outside, a global challenge to get families out of the house and away from screens. According to the challenge, kids spend 1,000 hours every year on screens, which means three hours every day.

The task for Vieira was to balance those three hours on screens with three hours outdoors, or better yet, no screens altogether.

“Between my kids not wanting to go outside or the weather, it started to be trickier than I thought,” Vieira said. “I wanted this book to be an inspiration for kids to go outside and play. I included educational tidbits and outdoor play inspiration, so as they’re reading, they have that spark to go outside and build a teepee or create a map of their environment.”

She’s noticed a difference in her kids after separating them from their screens, including better body awareness, risk-taking, confidence and creativity with how they play.

“Our 8-year-old was cuddled up reading her story, which is way above her reading level,” Vieira said. “Her eyebrows are furrowed; she’s so deeply into her story. We focus a lot of time on reading, whether reading aloud or everyone having their own book and reading at the same time.”