Our Books + Your Network!

Our family was fortunate to live in South Korea for four years. During that time, we traveled extensively across Asia and loved the cultures there. The ones we got to know the best were China, South Korea and Japan. I also felt that every day was a learning & growing experience for my kids. I was running the books program for the kindergarten in Seoul as a volunteer and I felt there was a lack of Asian inspired mainstream stories. I felt that kids all experience the same joys and sorrows; in fact, children worldwide are far more alike than they are different. I wanted to bring this same feeling of joy and discovery to children. I also wanted to pay tribute to the rich Asian cultures I was lucky enough to experience. Finally, we have an adopted Chinese daughter, Olivia Rui Jing, and I wanted her to have books where characters ate with chopsticks and celebrated Lunar Year. My children worked on the story lines and plots with me and inspired the characters so it became a cherished family project. When we moved from Seoul to Honolulu, we felt even more inspired to write a book series with blended character groups as Hawaii has a very much blended population and celebrates this.

The books are in cartons of 50 books, brand new and unopened. They are currently warehoused at Baker & Taylor’s facility in Ohio. They were published by ONCEKids using an exceptional printing facility in South Korea.

The children’s literacy influencer/advocate merely asks ONCEKids for a specific quantity of books (in increments of 50) and then ONCEKids will instruct the warehouse where to ship them. They will be shipped in their unopened cartons, all brand new. Upon receipt, ONCEKids will ask for a receipt confirming the Fujimini Adventure Series books were received and the quantity. This is used for tax and reporting purposes by ONCEKids.

You can email or call any of the team members.

The stories can be read to children as young as 4 years-old. Kids about 8 years-old can read the books if English is their first language. The books can be used to learn English as a 2nd language for teens or adults reading to their children.

The glossaries are more word dense, so the ages are a bit older for reading and digesting the content. Hopefully the terms and descriptions are very fun and exciting. The glossary and discussion guides were developed using a kindergarten principle as a resource. There are glossaries at the end of each book and the glossary items are on the ONCEKids website as well. The discussion guides for each book are found on the ONCEKids website. Again, they were developed to give children a joyous reading experience that stretches their minds and learning.

Our team came up with the name Chil’Lit as a nod to Children’s Literacy, but stated in a modern way.

ONCEKids believes to its core that education is key to increased equality in our world. The first time we gave away the books was to Eileen’s hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts. Her sister, the kindergarten principle that helped with developing the discussion guides told Eileen that 85% of the kindergarteners did not own a single book and most got breakfast and lunch at school. So, every kindergartener got a book (270 books). This developed into a motivation to find distressed or challenged populations and get them Fujimini Adventure Series books. Since then ONCEKids has given away thousands of books to anyone that we could find. But our reach to actual children is small so we are looking to partner with an organization that has the reach to children directly that would benefits from the gift of reading. Good readers are good learners, and, increasing children’s literacy can absolutely change the world.