{"id":28697,"date":"2021-02-11T13:59:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T18:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28697"},"modified":"2021-02-11T14:04:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T19:04:56","slug":"grandfather-and-grandson-make-writing-a-family-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/grandfather-and-grandson-make-writing-a-family-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"Grandfather and grandson make writing a family affair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Phil Renzoni and Adam Vanderkolff are bubbling over with excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, they\u2019re not only bubbling over with excitement but buoyed by an unbreakable bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grandfather and grandson team have a love of words and have turned that love into a new children\u2019s book, The Belly Button Bandits, which they hope will get young readers buzzing over the written word as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, alliteration is a key theme in The Belly Button Bandits, which the duo recently published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centred on Brian, Brent and Belinda Bigalow who have had their belly buttons plundered by the dastardly pirate Barnacle Bill, the story was first told to Adam by Phil on a family vacation to Cuba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen Adam was about six, we went to Cuba and saw a statue of Christopher Columbus,\u201d Phil explains. \u201cI was telling Adam there once were pirates in Cuba \u2013 he was really infatuated with pirates at the time \u2013 and we started pretending we were pirates. Back on the beach, we started making up a story about these pirates who came and stole kids\u2019 belly buttons and held them for ransom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wrote the story down and then forgot about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, Phil went on to write and illustrate the children\u2019s book \u201cThe Baby Who Started a Revolution\u201d, about a giggly child who helped the kingdom of Newfrownland (don\u2019t worry, you\u2019ll get it) learn to turn their perpetual frowns upside down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, however, Adam started studying communications at Wilfrid Laurier University \u2013 and doing some freelance work with The Auroran \u2013 and they both thought this was the perfect opportunity to pool their talents \u2013 burgeoning and well-honed, respectively \u2013 on a book they can call their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy grandfather has always been extremely artistic and creative,\u201d says Adam of Phil who also inked the book\u2019s illustrations. \u201cThere are a lot of things I do as a young student. You like to think you\u2019re creative, you shoot for the stars, but I realized my grandfather is right there, still has the same drive, and that creative energy that you would think a younger person aspiring to get to that level would have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Phil\u2019s part, he saw a new side of his grandson as they worked together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned that Adam is a very passionate person and can get really interested in something,\u201d he says. \u201cI guess I always knew that he was, but he really grabbed onto this, loved it, and wanted to do more and more. At first, I said, \u2018Hey, we should do this together,\u2019 but I wasn\u2019t necessarily going to do it, but I got so passionate about it that I figured I gotta do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a passion they hope will translate to audiences, kids and parents alike, and inspire young readers in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really fun story, just really good hearted,\u201d says Adam. \u201cIt is a fun read and perfect for kids. It\u2019s not just a children\u2019s book, it is also something that we worked on together, a memory of when I was little and of our relationship and how it has grown over the years \u2013 and we actually made this together. We had fun making it and it\u2019s about having fun with words.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Phil: \u201cWe just want [readers] to get very interested in words and stories, and the fact the words themselves can be fun. That is the main takeaway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for future collaborations, they won\u2019t rule in out. Together, they chuckle over such potential titles as \u201cAdam, The Apple-Eating Alligator\u201d all the way to \u201cZelda, the Zany Zebra,\u201d but neither one of them dismisses the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until then, The Belly Button Bandits will have to suffice \u2013 and it may just be the start of something more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Belly Button Bandits is published by FriesenPress and is available to order now from Amazon and Indigo, and directly from the authors for $15 by emailing philrenzoni@hotmail.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Renzoni and Adam Vanderkolff are bubbling over with excitement. In fact, they\u2019re not only bubbling over with excitement but buoyed by an unbreakable bond. The grandfather and grandson team have a love of words and have turned that love into a new children\u2019s book, The Belly Button Bandits, which they hope will get young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7sR","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 16:21:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}