diāria sīderum is a personal favorite. I think this one is my best, honestly, though it appears to be an unlikely choice for the Classicist Latin teacher. Then again, they’re not the ones reading the book. Students are! The sci-fi/fantasy narrative has a bit of a “who dunnit?” feel to it, with students seeking to figure out what made the book’s ancient culture disappear. It’s in three parts using half cognates. The first part has 30 cognates and 30 other words (i.e., 60 total), and the other two parts add 20 and 20 words to that, respectively (i.e., 100 total). It was written so that my Latin 1 class could read a 1000-word long intro to “The Architects” in Part 1 to get a sense of what was going on just before their disappearance. Then, during independent reading, anyone interested could finish Parts 2 and 3 that provide more clues as to what happened.

And that might not be everyone…