meetup | making books + making friends

The nice people at Syinc have invited me to speak at their FORK meetup next week, about our publishing process. Do come by and say hello! All the event details here.

FORK 3: Making Meaning With Curious Things 

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM (SGT)Singapore, Singapore

parenting | every father is a hero

Happy Father's Day! My younger son made this cool card for me, heh. He's also the artist who drew the covers for our Sherlock Hong and Ghostly books. The Force is strong in this one, yes? :-)  

And my older son created this, a simple pop up card that made me laugh. He's also the one who drew me dancing to "Gangnam Style" at the end of this earlier post. 

I love my kids! They're awesome and so inspiring.

author tour | telling stories, making friends, signing books

Me at HackerspaceSG introducing some of our Super Cool Books projects. 

Thanks to Elvin Hayden Liang for this photo.

It's been a busy week! 

We spent the first half of the week delivering copies of The Diary of Young Justice Bao all over the island. It's available at only SGD $2.50, so if you come across it do grab a few extra books for your friends!

Last Thursday evening I had a great time exchanging ideas with a really cool crowd at HackerspaceSG.

It was the regular SG Makers meetup, held once every two months. I was invited to talk about our DIY approach to publishing books for kids.

The other speakers were:

Ben Tang (tutor-maker-dad) showing us his home-engineered experiment kits.

Javier Su (SUTD) presenting a showcase of amazing student projects.

Kiki Tay (magician/special effects guru) explaining how he dazzles audiences with his lights, lasers and magic.

It was the most exciting time I've had in a long while. For more photos and a longer account, check out Funbie Studio's blog. 

A big thank you to William Hooi for organising this. He's also putting together the Singapore Mini Maker Faire in July.

Photo by Brigitte Rozario.

On Friday I had tea with my friend Brigitte Rozario from KL. She was here to promote her new book series for kids, The Adventures of Beebo & Friends. 

Brigitte did a Meet-and-Greet at Prologue (ION) and also told stories at the Woodlands Regional Library.

On Saturday morning I made a guest appearance at Clementi Primary School, as part of their first ever Reading Fiesta.

During my talk I shared some ideas for helping kids get enthusiastic about reading.  

I also had a chance to meet many young readers and sign their copies of The Diary of Young Justice Bao.

My son drew this! Yes, I'm always dancing around the house.

In between all this I was kept busy working out new ideas for some surprise collaborations coming up later this year. Hint: games are involved. 

Will be announcing these new book projects soon!

learning | SCHOOLASIA features our GHOSTLY learning kit

Our Cats are Cool learning kit is now available on the SchoolAsia website.

They have lots of useful learning resources for teachers and parents, do check them out.

You can order the Ghostly paperback from Select Books, or get the ebook here (Smashwords) and here (iTunes).

Join us on FACEBOOK!

parenting | interview on Dads for Life website

Here I am on the Dads for Life website, sharing some ideas on how to help reluctant readers ... those of you who are parents or teachers might find this useful.

Happy reading! :-)