The doorway to adventure . . . and to writing!

I’m prepping for a week at a school next week and will be rolling out one of my favourite workshops: The Doorway to Adventure! I’ll be doing this one for Grade 4s, but it’s easily adjusted to fit any age (I’ve done it for grades K-9).

For a typical school visit, I deliver a hybrid “presentation-workshop,” which combines my author introduction and writing approach with a hands-on activity for the students. In “The Doorway to Adventure,” I showcase the doors I’ve “collected” from around the world (some of my favourites picture here) and explain how they’ve inspired my books (especially The Secret of Zoone)! Next, I lead students in an interactive brainstorming session, helping them design their own doors as they consider storytelling questions. Students then use this brainstorming as a scene or story starter.

More information about my author presentation, craft workshops, and residencies on my website.

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Sign-ups for WRAD 2023 now open!

Are you a teacher, librarian or educator? I am thrilled to be participating in World Read Aloud Day 2023, and am currently booking 20-minute slots.

A typical structure for my WRAD visits looks something like this:

• 1-2 minutes: I introduce myself and talk a little about my books (I come with props!)
• 3-5 minutes: I read aloud a short excerpt from a book.
• 5-10 minutes: I answer a few questions from students about reading/writing.
• 1-2 minutes: I book-talk a couple books I love (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for your students.

I’ll be reading from either Spell Sweeper, The Secret of Zoone, or The Guardians of Zoone—or maybe I’ll give you a sneak-peek of a new work! I write middle-grade fantasy books that contain high adventure, plus some meaningful messages about how we can find our place in our communities and the world at large. Ideal for grades 4-7.

To book your slot, visit my sign-up genius page or email me through my website, leefodi.com.

And, of course, I’m booking regular school visits that involve in-depth presentations and my trademark interactive brainstorming sessions. For info on those, please visit leefodi.com!

Cherishing our family stories

Today, I received a package from Quilchena School in Vancouver where I did a (virtual) writer-in-residency on the theme of family and cultural stories. 

Over the course of several weeks, the students, teacher Kelly Enns, and I explored family connections through personal memories, heirlooms, old photographs, and legends passed down through the generations. We spoke of different family situations, what makes a family, and the different cultures that have contributed to our lives. Kelly is Japanese Canadian and could speak a lot about her family’s experiences during the internment of World War II. I was able to speak about how my wife and I adopted our son internationally, and what it means to embrace and incorporate a new culture into our daily lives. And, of course, the students had many stories to share.

Along the way, we produced many different writing pieces. We wrote poems or descriptive paragraphs about an item or moment in our lives. We wrote short stories inspired by family legends, and even imagined our family homes telling a story about us.

I loved seeing all of the heirlooms and photographs that the children showed me; some of them very old and beautiful, coming from all corners of the world. Along the way, I showed some of my own family heirlooms and photos. 

It’s not always easy to know what kind of impact you leave as a visiting author, but it’s even more difficult in this age when everything is online. So, I am extremely touched that the teacher prepared this book of writing and artwork! I will cherish it always.

The students drew many pictures of how they connected with me. There are a lot of drawings of the characters from my books: Kendra Kandlestar, Tug the skyger, Fidget, Ozzie . . . plus many pictures of brooms, since I talked to them a lot about my forthcoming book, Spell Sweeper, and how a large part of it was inspired by my grandfather handmaking his own brooms.

You will also notice many pictures of chickens. Students are always amused to hear the stories of me being attacked by the rooster when I was a kid! So, in short, it seems that when kids think of me it goes like this: flying tigers, chickens, and brooms. Seems about right!

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Give-away time!

The paperback version of The Guardians of Zoone, my most recent middlegrade book, is out now with HarperCollins Children’s Book! To celebrate this AND I Read Canadian Day, I’m gifting three autographed copies!

To enter:

1. Head on over to my twitter account and check out my pinned tweet.
2. Retweet and follow me (if you don’t already!)
3. Comment with your favorite pirate character!

Giveaway closes Feb 13, 12pm PST and is available for shipping to Canadian and US addresses. I’m going to throw in some other Zoone-related goodies, such as some stickers! PLUS, the book includes one other special treats (more on that below) . . .

I had forgotten all about this until I got my own copies of the paperback version of The Guardians of Zoone and flipped through it—there is a SNEAK PEEK of my brand-new middle grade book, SPELL SWEEPER (coming out Fall, 2021). Ah! I’m so excited for Spell Sweeper and to share it with you!

What’s even more fun is that the graphic HarperCollins used in the sneak-peek section was designed by ME. I sometimes do little logos to help keep me going during the arduous writing process—and then I put them in my manuscript submissions. My editor and team at HarperCollins liked it well enough to use it for this sneak peek, which is kind of cool!

I should say that I’ve now received the “page passes” for the final design and the typography for the title looks MUCH better than mine, but it’s still neat to see that my version was here.

Well, what are you waiting for? Head on over to my twitter page and enter my contest!

Activities for kids: make a moto

I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small who are stuck at home. Today’s activity: making a moto!

What’s a moto, you ask? It’s a type of robot that wreaks havoc upon Ozzie and friends in my latest middle-grade book, The Guardians of Zoone.

The motos didn’t make it to the cover, but rest assured they play a big part, as their world, Moton, is one where our characters spend a lot of time. Here’s a look at some motos, as depicted on the vintage-style travel sticker that I created for that treacherous realm:

What you will need:

• Paper to print out the template below.
• Pencils and coloring supplies.
• Scissors
• Glue

Just download the template sheet and follow the instructions. Of course, I always encourage my students to make their own creations from scratch—but sometimes a little inspiration can go a long way, and maybe this sheet will help!

These are pretty much the same pieces that I used to design the travel sticker above!

There is also a maker-space opportunity here. I love building things, so if you’re like me, and keep every lid and cap from your household products, then you will have a big store of switches and buttons. I recently used a lot of these to build my own moto probe. Admittedly, I also had to draw on some more specialized supplies from the craft store, such as brads, gears, clock hands—but otherwise, a lot of the pieces are just “junk” or bits and bobs such as thumbtacks, paperclips, and plastic lids. The “body” is just a styrofoam ball painted with metallic paint.

Have fun imagining and stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .

Activities for kids: Design your own travel sticker

I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small who are stuck at home. Today’s activity: creating vintage-style travel stickers for imagined fantasy worlds!

In a recent post, I uploaded the activity to make a travel brochure. The activity I’m posting today is less ambitious, but just as fun (and, in fact, I used many of my own travel sticker designs to populate my travel brochure example).

What you will need:

• Paper to print out the template below.
• Pencils and coloring supplies.

Just download the template sheets, which are filled with various frames and shapes. This project is a great way to brainstorm ideas for different worlds, and distill a setting to its most important feature or essence.

Also, for those young writers who have already created a setting, this is a fun way to celebrate it!

You can download the template sheets here:

And here are some examples of vintage-style travel stickers that I designed for the worlds in my middle-grade books, The Secret of Zoone and The Guardians of Zoone.

 

There’s an add-on project here, of course. You can cut out your ideas and glue them to your own storage boxes or luggage. (It’s probably no surprise to people that I have Zoone stickers on my actual suitcase that I travel with.)

Stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .

Activities for kids: Let’s get out of this place

I’m posting my latest activity for all of us kids big and small who are stuck at home. Today’s activity: Designing a brochure for an imagined world.

The truth is that when I was a kid, we didn’t go on a lot of vacations. A big reason for this is that I grew up on a family farm and the summer—when most people go on vacation—was the time for us to work really hard and earn the income that would sustain us for the rest of the year.

So, most of my “vacations” were taken through books—either by reading them or writing them.

Of course, reading or writing are great ways to escape NOW, during our world COVID-19 pandemic, but I want to provide a bit more focus with this activity. Who knows, it might turn into a book—or, if you have already written a book or story, this project can be a fun way to view your “world” from a different perspective.

I’ve delivered this activity several times with students at schools or programs I’ve worked at in Canada and Korea, and it’s proven to be a lot of fun.

The imaginary travel brochure

What you will need:

• Paper — you can use either blank paper or use the template I’ve provided
• Drawing supplies: Pens, pencils, colored pencils, fine-liners, markers—your preference!
• Optional: glue

The goal of this project is to make a three-panel tri-fold brochure, which you can do simply by folding a letter-sized piece of paper into thirds. That gives you three panels on one side of the brochure, and three on the other. You can do your brochure double-sided on a single sheet of paper, or if you are worried about your paper being too thin, and markers bleeding through, then just do this project on two separate pieces of paper, which you could always glue together afterward.

There are no real rules to how to fill out the pages, but I recommend:

SIDE 1

• Panel 1 (the cover): Cover art and title, such as “Come Visit . . .”
• Panel 6 (the back cover): Contact information.
• Panel 5: More information about the world the brochure is advertising—I like doing a “did you know” section here.

SIDE 2

• Panel 2: General information about the world, showcasing key points of interest.
• Panels 3&4: A bigger piece of artwork, such as a landscape of the world, or a map.

Of course, I highly recommend brainstorming the content and working on some rough copies before worrying about the final version. You can use your own blank paper folded into thirds, though if you want some content blocks to work with, then you can download my template HERE. You can also download and print out the template with the instructions, just in case you want something sitting in front of you to look at.

If you do print out my template double-sided, you may have to experiment with how your printer works—certain devices seem to flip the second page the wrong way!

Come visit these imaginary worlds:

I always have this rule in my creativity classes: If I ask YOU to do it, then I’ve also done it. So, here are two brochures that I’ve made! One is for The Land of Een, which is featured in my Kendra Kandlestar book series. The other is for the multiverse that appears in my Zoone series–because Zoone features so many different worlds, I decided to do that brochure a little bit differently!

Finally, here are some brochure examples done by past students.

Foodlandia:

Rainbow Island:

Land of Cute:

Ocean Kingdom:

I’d love to see what kids come up with! If you post them on social media, please hashtag #imaginarytravelbrochure and tag me (I’m @leefodi on Instagram and twitter).

In the meantime, stay safe, stay well, and stay tuned . . .

 

The Guardians of Zoone takes flight!

Planning a book launch isn’t all that different from planning a wedding—there are invitations, food to organize, giveaways, speeches . . . and all the stress to go with it.

Which is all to say how grateful I am that the launch for my latest book, The Guardians of Zoone, was such an overwhelming success. A big thank you to the Main Street Book Warehouse in Vancouver for hosting. The store was packed wall to wall and we sold out every book in the store emblazoned with the word “Zoone” on the cover!

I am blessed to have friends and family in many talented areas, who helped out with the event. My wife, Marcie, and our friend Stacey made delicious skyger cookies with melted turquoise chocolate. My friend, Jeff, took my drawing of the key to Zoone and turned it into a template to 3D print keys for prizes (by the way, that template is loaded up on my website, so that anyone can print their own key—the template is here). My friend, Jina, took all the amazing photographs you see below (you can check out her Instagram at @jinakimphotography).

I dressed as a portal pirate for the occasion (since they play a big part in the book) and had plenty of freebies to hand out—including keys and stickers. The prizes included the 3D-printed Zoone keys, and some props handmade by me: a dragon egg and a “moto” probe (a robotic spy that flies about the multiverse, gathering information on worlds to “motonize”).

A big thanks to everyone who came out! And, of course, you can check out the order links for the Book of Zoone here.

Door of the day: The final one!

. . . well, at least for now!

Since tonight is my book launch for The Guardians of Zoone, I’m going to end my series of doors (and details) a day today. I’ve been posting for over fifty consecutive days!

Even though there are still many doors to choose from, I opted to go with this mischievous knocker from Shanghai because its personality seems to best represent my writing!  

Thank you, everyone, for all the door love, these past two months!

You can find order links for the books of Zoone HERE.

Door of the Day: The door to happiness

This door is from the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.  It is one of many beautiful doors and door details that I photographed during our exploration.

This place holds a special memory for me. We visited Meiji Shrine when adopting our son in 2018; Hiro was only six weeks old at the time of our visit. Outside of the shrine, we stopped to get some takoyaki (a battered seafood ball—often octopus) for our lunch and the elderly man behind the stall scurried out front to see our new son cradled against Marcie’s chest in the baby carrier. He was so effusive: “Happy, happy, happy!” he cried, beaming ear to ear. We felt very welcomed!

I’m posting my door inspirations from around the world to celebrate the release of The Guardians of Zoone! 🚪🗝️

You can find order links for the books of Zoone HERE.