A Vancouver Island author is hoping to inspire young girls to be the best version of themselves through her newest adventure work.
Lauren de Leeuw is an author based in Campbell River. The book titled Secrets in the Islands chronicles the adventures of a young girl named Sami, whose parents are famous archaeologists.
Left out of her parents’ adventures, she finally gets to come with them to Haida Gwaii on a trip. However, she gets into a lot of trouble and must help a friend find missing artifacts.
de Leeuw says she started writing the story because these types of books do not seem as prevalent as when she was a kid.
“There’s a lot of magic and fantasy which I understand is really fun to read, but what I loved about reading these books back then is that they were real,” said de Leeuw. “They seem to have these potentially real life, crazy situations that could happen and that was exciting.”
The archaeology piece comes from her schooling. de Leeuw is a former journalist who started in archaeology. It is set in Haida Gwaii because she is planning to write a series and she wanted the first book to be in a place that is close to home.
While the inspiration for the book has come from life experience, she also wants it to encourage young girls to be bold in the world.
“A lot of the books that I read growing up, the protagonists were often male. So, I thought we’ll make the main character female here,” said de Leeuw.
“The other thing too is that at age 12 and 13, these kids go through so much. I really just want to encourage young people and young girls especially to explore the world around them and to try new things, be brave and learn about yourself, both strengths and weaknesses.”
The book is expected to be in local bookstores soon but is also available on her website and Amazon.
