barrettLori Leak is a not-quite fictional young African-American girl who travels the world with her family. Curious and very intelligent, she finds everyday is an adventure and she makes the most of it — in ways that will make the reader laugh with joy.
Lori Leak will, over the years, travel to many cities across the globe.
How It All Began
Lori Leak began the day I, author Barrett Clemmensen Powell, was born. That is, she is me. Lori, her brother Earl and her parents, Lawrence and Adelle Leak are all based on my family.
When I was a child, I planned long distance trips with my father but was unable to take them. Now, with this children’s book series, I am able to travel with my father and my immediate family, around the world.
The Meaning Of It All
But there is more to it than just a little girl taking trips and my fulfilling a dream. There is a more serious message of hope behind this writing project.
You see, children of color in the United States of America, for a number of reasons, do not tend to travel far around the USA or around the world. In high school, I was fortunate that I was in French classes that had a trip to France (all the language classes offered a trip to a country in Europe where the language was spoken). But it was only me out of every African-American child in the school that got to have such an experience. My parents had always told me I could BE anyone I wanted to be, DO anything I wanted to do and GO anywhere I wanted to travel, so travelling the world did not seem an impossibility.
There are articles you can find which point out that middle-class and upper-middle class Anglo children routinely have these opportunities. They travel internationally in high school with their family , or during a gap year before university or during university they study abroad. As adults they vacation in various countries.
Girls and women of color typically do not travel internationally for education, leisure or short-/long-term living. The Lori Leak children’s book series hopes to change that.
As a curious, intelligent world traveling African American girl, Lori Leak will be a role model for both girls in general and young girls of color to explore and learn about the world, its places, people and cultures. Simply by reading of Lori Leak’s travel adventures, young girls in general and especially young girls of color will know they can become
- teenagers who learn languages and travel to the lands that speak it
- young adults who spend gap years in foreign countries
- university students who study abroad
- adults who live and/or work in another country than their native land