Welcome to the Explorer Academy Vela Blog Tour!
About the Book: Explorer Academy Vela, Book 1: THE SAILOR CIPHER
Sailor York and the daring recruits of Explorer Academy uncover an elusive animal-smuggling ring in the first electrifying book in this new companion series.
Soon after Cruz, Sailor, Emmett, and Lani return for their second year at Explorer Academy, their sense of calm is shattered when Sailor’s older sister goes missing. Amidst incredible expeditions to far-flung destinations and competitive classes, Sailor bravely steps into the lead to discover how her sister’s sudden disappearance may be linked to an illegal and deadly animal-trafficking ring.
Despite winning the prestigious North Star Award and being surrounded by close friends and teachers who she has traveled the world with, Sailor’s never felt less sure of herself. As the team faces puzzling obstacles and follows complex clues aboad the new ship, Vela, Sailor grapples with a secret of her own. Will she she risk everything and choose to embrace her destiny?
About the Author:
Trudi Trueit writes the award-winning EXPLORER ACADEMY fact-based fiction series for National Geographic, which has been translated into 20 languages. She is the author of more than 100 fiction and nonfiction titles for kids, including MY TOP SECRET DARES AND DON’TS, THE SISTER SOLUTION, and THE SECRETS OF A LAB RAT series (Simon & Schuster). A Seattle native, she makes her home in Everett, WA with her photographer husband and lives to serve the whims of their three cats. And yes, Trudi Trueit is her real name (by marriage)!
Guest Post
Blogpost #4: Finding Your Passion
Trudi Trueit
Now and again, I get to visit schools accompanied by a real explorer from National Geographic. I’ve done presentations alongside a submarine pilot, a photographer, a paleontologist, and a biomedical scientist who collects animal venom for use in lifesaving medications. All were riveting! Along with sharing their incredible discoveries, the explorers revealed that their enthusiasm for their chosen career field first blossomed when they were kids; the sub pilot had always loved the ocean, the photographer enjoyed nature hikes, the paleontologist was into dinosaurs, and the biomedical scientist was forever bringing home snakes. Now adults, each had turned a passion into a profession.
It was like that for me, too. I’d always loved writing but wondered, even as a child, could I make a living at it? There weren’t too many writers in my hometown of Kent, WA, a suburb of Seattle. We had teachers, lawyers, doctors, business owners, and farmers and if your parents weren’t any of those, they most certainly worked for Boeing (my dad was an engineer). When I told my eighth-grade journalism teacher I was considering a career as a news reporter, he responded, “Good! We have a newspaper here in town!”
I was stunned. “You mean, I should be one now?”
That’s exactly what he meant.
While my dad waited in the car, I nervously met with the features editor of the Kent News Journal. She was kind and supported the idea of adding a young person’s perspective to the paper. So I began writing a monthly column for and about teens, which evolved into a monthly magazine insert called Expression that I continued to contribute to through my high school years. After earning a college degree in broadcast journalism, I pursued a career in writing—one that took me in more directions than I’d ever thought possible. I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter, radio anchor and disc jockey, TV news reporter and weather forecaster, freelance writer, publicist, and now, the author of more than 100 fiction and nonfiction children’s books. That last one is the biggest surprise of all.
Along the way, I discovered that as long as I was willing to keep learning and stretching, new steppingstones would appear in front of me. Hop on one, hone my craft, set a new goal, and voila—soon, the next stone would magically materialize. If I could go back and give some advice to my younger self, that anxious girl who worried about whether she could survive on storytelling, I would say, “You will be a writer, because you already are one.”
As I head out to talk to school kids this spring, the message I bring is this: explore, explore, explore! You are not too young to search for, and even find, your passion. Try new things. Try scary things. Try things that excite you. Try things that don’t excite you. But try. Only in the doing will you expand your world and discover just where your heart lies. Then believe in yourself, work hard, and be ready to follow the steppingstones. They will always appear. And they will lead you to places you never dreamed possible!
My new Explorer Academy book Vela Book The Sailor Cipher features Sailor York as the main character. Sailor and her Explorer Academy classmates uncover an elusive animal-smuggling ring, face puzzling obstacles, and follow complex clues aboard the new ship, Vela.
The new Explorer Academy book Vela Book The Sailor Cipher features Sailor York as the main character. Sailor and her Explorer Academy classmates uncover an elusive animal-smuggling ring, face puzzling obstacles, and follow complex clues aboard the new ship, Vela.
