The official first day of summer is June 21st and that means one thing: school’s out for the season. Kids everywhere are celebrating their newfound freedom at the same time parents are wondering how best to keep their kids entertained, and maybe even a little challenged, over the summer.

As a parent, you may want to be sneaky about trying to get your kids to do anything educational during their sacred summer vacations, but what they might not know yet is that learning can actually be really fun. Especially when learning is facilitated by a spunky blue alien from the planet Vox Nova!

Adventures with Zap: 107 Creative Prompts for Beginning Writers—for Earthlings Ages 4 and Up by Diane Landy and Allison Hershey is the most fun way to get your child to write and draw over the summer. Zap, a spunky blue alien, needs to learn about Earth—and your child is the one to teach him!

Each writing and drawing prompt is carefully crafted around a comic story, and kids will create characters, settings, and action scenes; express feelings and wishes; brainstorm when stuck; write thoughts and dialogue; and more!

To get you started, we’ve made a couple of sample pages from Adventures with Zap available for download here. The sample pages – word searches, brainstorms, drawing prompts, and more – give you just a taste of the whole book. Print them out, plop them in front of your kid, and watch as Zap works his kid-friendly magic.

For more writing and drawing prompts and activities, check out Adventures with Zap, available now wherever books are sold.

About the Authors:

Diane Landy is a writer and longtime volunteer for writing projects in elementary and preschool classrooms. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA, with her husband and two empty nests for daughters away in college.

Allison Hershey is a professional illustrator whose art has appeared in science fiction magazines and adventure games, including Inherit the Earth and Halls of the Dead: Faery Tale Adventures II.