Reflecting on my busy Summer

As the summer is winding down, it is time to reflect on it.

I hope you all had a very interesting, fun and exciting summer doing all the things you wanted to.
For me, it has been a very exciting, fun and very busy summer. I've been working very hard with the preparation of my next book, "Freddy's French Fries Fiasco". In an earlier posting I presented Freddy and his friends to you. We are now finishing up the illustrations and the book will be published by April 2010.

I've been working hard on the marketing of " A Winter Solstice Celebration" and will be featured at the Miami Book Fair in November. I'm also getting a new web-site which will feature my books. I have a temporary one at the moment, which you can visit. It is: www.didisbooks.com.

Out of my sad and scary experience with the fire, comes a new book. Jesse, a 10 year old girl, who lived in a similar building as mine, talks about the night that her building burnt down. I've started to work on the book and hope to complete this over the winter. Deciding the structure of the book is an interesting process. I'm not sure yet if I want to write it in the third person singular or that I might write is as an auto biography written by Jesse herself. This is something I'm playing with.

I want to share my experience of the fire with the children and give them crucial information about how to react in such a situation. This is very important to me. I'll keep you posted on the developments of Jesse's book.

I've also been very busy with my ESL students- teaching English as well as showing them around Toronto. We've had a lot of fun. I've met some very interesting people young and old. In the last few weeks I've been looking after a group of 8 children from Nigeria- all under 12 years. They were lovely children, a bit rambunctious and they didn't know Toronto, so I needed to keep a sharp eye out for them. We had a great time going to Niagara Falls, the Beaches,CNE, ROM,CN Tower- where they stood on the glass floor, shopping (yes even young kids love to shop)and going to chuck-E-Cheez amongst a few things. We've become vast friends. One of the students has taken my book back to Nigeria and is reading it to his sisters and friends.

The last few weeks I've been preparing for Word on the Street. Again, very exciting!

On Sunday September 27th I'll be featured as one of the writers of WEN- Writers' and Editors' Network. I will be showcasing my most book "A Winter Solstice Celebration" Please come to visit us. We are at the north end of the park near Charles street and Queens Park.

I hope to see you there.

Having a fun Summer

During the last month I have been very busy with my other career as ESL teacher. During the summer months we have a program for children and as I'm a children's book author, the director of the school thought it would be a great idea for me to work with our kids in the ESL summer camp.
He was right, I'm having a great time. Oh, and so are the children!

My students have gone to a cooking school, they've gone hiking, watched movies, created a few art masterpieces. They are scheduled to do a few more very fun activities before they leave at the end of August. They have also learnt some basic English, such as Simple Present, Simple Past and Present Progressive and they are practicing everyday.

In the afternoons I take some of our older students around to see the sights of Toronto and other areas well worth seeing.
We've gone to Niagara Falls,Niagara -on- the -Lake, saw a winery and got soaked on the Maid of the Mist. We saw The Distillery district, the CN Tower, went to a Baseball game to see the Blue Jays( sadly they lost that game). We've gone shopping, bowling, toured the University of Toronto, went to a movie and saw the St. Lawrence Market. We also had a fun day at Canada's Wonderland.

The fun part is that I get to play tourist or better yet tour guide in my own city. Toronto is a great place to visit............. even now when we have a garbage strike where well paid city workers throw a temper tantrum, which we are the brunt of. I strongly feel that all the BIAs ( Business Improvement Areas) should work with the locals of that area and hire private garbage pick ups that listen to us, their employers. Then the city workers can strike to their hearts delight............we don't need them anymore!

On a lighter note, I have another 2-3 weeks of playing tour guide . Then, I get the chance to work on the publication of Freddy. I hope to introduce him and his friends soon.