Originally published on 8 September 2016 in the Pasadena Independent, Arcadia Weekly, Monrovia Weekly, and Sierra Madre Weekly

In 12-year-old Leila Wu’s head, there are perfectly formed people with magical powers who inhabit earth and can also live in another world, quite apart from our idea of reality. She describes these individuals and the place they visit in vivid detail in her book, The Mysterious World of Camelot. It is the second installment in what she plans to be an ambitious 14-book series.  

It all started with Jupiter – the planet – not the Roman god. Strange as that may sound, it was a research paper on the solar system that got then first-grader and six-year old, Leila, interested in writing.

“I spent recess time researching and I learned about the red dot, a storm on Jupiter. I found it so engrossing that I wrote ten pages for what was a seven-page work assignment. My teacher, Mrs. Watts, had to stop me at that point because the class had moved on to Saturn,” recalls Leila, now a 6^th grader at Clairbourn School in San Gabriel.

In 2^nd grade Leila wrote a little poem for Mothers’ Visiting Day that so charmed her teacher, Denise Wreede, that she submitted it to Paw Print, the school’s student publication. Her mom, Monica, was both impressed and touched when she read it.     

“I truly believe in passion first and foremost, and then in talent,” she discloses. “I try to expose my two children to different experiences to give them a chance to find out what interests them. I told Leila she might consider writing a short story too, and she rose to the challenge. She decided to pen a novel with 12 chapters and proceeded to craft the table of contents. She even knew how many pages she would devote to each chapter.”     

Then Leila hit a bump on the road so Monica approached Wreede for assistance.  Wreede relates, “I met with her twice or thrice a week after school, giving her direction and making her focus.  She would stand by me and tell me what she wanted to write and I typed it. After we finished the first working draft, I handed it over to Stephen Rivele, who was then the Clairbourn parent staff for Paw Print.”  

A best-selling author himself, Rivele, helped Leila develop and polish the text and illustrations for the story, then took it to Amazon. And The Mysterious Book of Magic was published; Leila was eight years old. It introduces readers to the fantastic world of Jennifer and Josephine, twin sisters, and their mom, Madelin. The twins chance upon this mysterious book which a boy, named Arthur, has inadvertently lost. 

That was the beginning of a friendship and a magical journey for the three young protagonists that Leila continues in the second installment called The Mysterious World of Camelot. Here, she establishes a darker universe as Jennifer, Josephine, and Arthur travel to his home, Camelot, and meet Arthur’s evil brother, Francis, who is attempting to assert his legacy as successor to their father’s reign in the kingdom. 

This second book – at 414 pages – which Leila began in 3^rd grade, took much longer to write. It required meticulous rewriting and professional editing. Monica found another Clairbourn parent, Chris Trager, to guide her through this undertaking.  

Trager says, “It was really a collaboration; Leila already knew what she wanted to write and how to go about it. I think she has found her voice – I will pick up a book 20 years from now and I would know it’s her work.”  

Leila’s fictional crusaders are children her age whom she imbued with some of her own characteristics, interests, and beliefs. She intends for them to grow up alongside her and together they will go into ever more dangerous but fun adventures. Her heroes will brandish their acquired magical powers to fight on behalf of righteousness as much as she will wield her boundless creative ability to bring endless joy into the lives of her readers.