Writer’s first novel to benefit Unicef
Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to write a book – and raise money for charity.
For 10-year-old Maia Brown, sitting in her Lyall Bay home, holding a copy of her first published book, Young Elements Academy, she’s reached her fairytale moment.
‘‘This year was the best year for my writing. Normally I will start a story and never finish it, but there’s so many more ideas. This year, I said I was going to finish this.’’
Maia’s tale started at a bake sale last year. She wanted to raise money for Unicef and sold off tasty treats, making nearly $200.
But she knew she could beat that record and wants to donate the proceeds from sales of her book to the charity as well.
The Lyall Bay School student has always been a writer and has stacks of ideas and half-written novels saved on her own laptop as well as her parents’ ones.
‘‘I really wanted to be a writer ever since I was 4 or 5,’’ she said.
In her first term of school this year, inspiration struck. She started writing a tale of four girls who attend a boarding school. ‘‘But it’s not a normal boarding school.’’ Each student at the school has magic powers and looks styled after an element – ‘‘water girls’’ have hair made of water and use water-based powers.
Her story follows a group of characters as they race to recover a kidnapped sibling and defeat evil.
Maia wrote the book in about two months and on finishing it, decided it should be published.
Her parents, Giles Brown and Virginia Keast thought, ‘Why not?’.
‘‘We thought why not get it self-published for friends and family?’’ Brown said.
Maia’s aunt provided illustrations and an outside editor was brought in to take a look at the story.
During all this, Maia decided she wanted to help Unicef once again and the proceeds from any sales that she made with her books could go right to the charity.
Maia’s father said Unicef came on board pretty quickly and before long, the family had a date set for a proper book launch – October 27 at The Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie.
This time around, Maia reckoned she could beat her previous fundraising effort. ‘‘If we sell 100 copies we will make $2500.’’ Maia said she was excited to see her book for sale but was a bit nervous too.
She has shared a lot of her school writing work with people, but hadn’t shared as much of her personal stories. A touch of nerves hasn’t held her back though.
The young author has already written a sequel to Young Elements Academy, and she has a spinoff novel in the works as well.
Young Elements Academy will be launched October 27, 4.30pm at The Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie. Copies of the book are available through youngelements academy.com. Can I call noise control on my neighbour’s recently installed wind chimes? They’re really going for it in the Wellington wind. Cannot believe anyone finds that sound pleasant.
Was cool riding on Mt Vic today and hearing and seeing kaka swooping and screeching away. Awesome #Wellington keep it up!
One difference I’ve noticed between travelling by train instead of bus in Wellington: 90% of bus passengers will acknowledge the driver with ‘‘Thank you driver’’. 90% of train passengers hardly even engage in eye contact, let alone thank the ticket collector.
Every person over 50 on Cuba St tonight has hipster glasses and looks like they paint in their spare time. Wellington is a weird place.
Wellington’s buy and sell groups are a gift that keeps on giving.
People don’t jaywalk in Auckland like they do in Wellington. In fact I couldn’t tell you any other city I’ve visited in the world where people act like they do in Wellington.
I am on a bus that goes ALL THE WAY from Newtown to Karori, and it feels like utter luxury. #WhyWellington