Guest Post: Internet Kids Road Trip

I was excited to learn about this book. Welcome Anna Blake to Ohio Homeschooling this week!

The story behind our family project started about 12 month ago when our home office computer was badly damaged by a ransomware virus. We lost most of our photos and important documents due to gruesome act of the hackers.

At the time, our son Max was only 6 months old, and some of the photos we lost were his newborn one’s. So, that virus not only damaged our files, it stole our most precious memories.

That’s when it hit me, in a world where electronic devices have become our best friends, it’s inevitable for our kids to follow our footsteps. As we all know, the online world is full of dangers, be it sex offenders, identity theft, or ransomware viruses, our kids are as vulnerable as ever. I guess because we just recently had our first kid, both me and my hubby became especially paranoid about kid safety. Plus, all those scary stories you see in the news on daily basis.

Did you know that law enforcement officials estimate that more than 50,000 sexual predators are online at any given moment?

After surveying dozens of parents that we personally knew with kids ages 6-10, we realized that 90% of them do not supervise their kids’ online activities, and those that do, do not educate their kids about risks associated with the online world. However, all of them showed interest in our idea of an educational book that talks to kids through a captivating storyline and colorful illustrations about the internet. I guess it’s easier for all of us to let some book educate our kids instead of us doing it in person :)

That’s how “Internet Kids - Road Trip”, a book about staying safe online, was born. From the getgo we’ve decided that both printed and electronic versions of the book will be absolutely free (we even pay for shipping). This way, we can get it into as many hands of little girls and boys as possible.

During the past few months, we’ve worked with a published kids book writer to come up with a storyline and address all safety concerns that we’ve collected from our mommy surveys. My husband and his very talented sister hand drew all characters and came up with the illustrations. For a while our home looked like a publishing house, with hand sketches all over my kitchen countertops, bathrooms and even under our pillows. Max would steal them from the office desk and try to hide pages whenever he could.

I’m happy to say that our first batch of 1,000 books is currently in print (YAY!) and we have a waitlist of schools that agreed to distribute them to their students. Still, that is just a drop in the huge ocean of readers nationwide that will hopefully benefit from it. Meanwhile, we’ve started to work on our next book series, focusing on another touching subject, kids bullying.

As Kofi Annan once said, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.”

I wish all of you and your families to stay safe and have wonderful experiences such as family road trips :)

If you would like to get a free copy of “Internet Kids - Road Trip” book, please visit: www.antivirus.best/book

About Anna Blake

Anna is a stay at home mom, wife and owner of very demanding cat, from sunny Chatsworth, California. When she is not busy chasing her 2 year old around, you can find her trying out new salad recipes or re-watching favorite chick-flick movies.

Together with her hubby they educate kids and adults about internet safety through their website and recently created an educational children's book "Internet Kids - Road Trip".