2024-01-24

Oak Island children’s book recently released

OAK ISLAND - When fiction meets history.

Author Sherri Boudreau (S.L. Boudreau) of Lower Sackville has penned her first book and it is about Oak Island through the eyes of three adventurous children from Mahone Bay (The Oak Island Treasure Kids).

"I was actually at a friend's house and saw a book on Oak Island and thought to myself that I've never seen a children's book about Oak Island," said Boudreau. "At that time I was really looking at publishing a different book, but decided to sit down and see what I could come up with."

Through some convincing of friends and their positive feedback she decided to publish this one first. This is number one in a series of three.

"I thought that I would incorporate some of the original story from Oak Island, but kind of do it modern day," she said, adding that her next book will come out in September, and her third instalment in the spring/summer of 2025. "The biggest thing with this book is that I wanted to draw the attention of the younger generation. It doesn't necessarily talk about the full story, but gives some of the history."

Boudreau has worked in several different areas including marketing, which gave her the confidence to self-publish the book, then work on the marketing side of the things. Currently, she is working for the historical society and the Kings County Museum.

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. A lot of people associated that I've met through the historical society and the museum have written books. So I've been able to ask them a lot of questions," she said.

One of the big hurdles for her was to find someone to do the illustrations that she wanted to go in the book. After her first attempt failed, she found one online, Yurii Speranskii, and things have worked out well, as it comes out like it was done in the 1980s, something that she was looking for.

"Animation has changed a lot over time and I wanted to take things back in time a bit," she said. "We worked really well together. I told him what I wanted on each page and he just drew them and it turned out really well."

The book came out on Jan. 7 and early on it hit number two on the best sellers list for Amazon in the category of exploration and discovery for children.

She has also put together a website: http://oaklslandtreasurekids.com where you can read more about the author, the books, the history of Oak Island, leave a review, print off an activity page and even order some swag. There is also a Facebook available to keep on all the latest news.

The books are only available on Amazon right now, but hopes that they will head to the store shelves soon.

"If I would have seen this book when my kids were younger I would have bought it," she remarked.