ANJOBU in Japan

By Anthony D. Fitzgerald

Jules, Dracula the dragon and the mice have heard of an old master in Japan, who says he can find any lost object in the world. Immediately Jules wants to meet the Master and ask him where her yellow train has got to. The only problem is that the Master lives in a mysterious village, a place that harbors a big secret. As soon as the friends enter the village they encounter their first difficult tasks: For Jules, tricky riddles await her in an abandoned temple, which is floating in the middle of a lake on a giant leaf. Basil and Popcorn meet the Japanese Mouse-Emperor and have to prove that they have what it takes to become mouse warriors. And Dracula searches for a secret dragon cave where allegedly, the entire knowledge of the dragons has been preserved! But even bigger surprises await the friends! Get the book now and uncover the secrets of the mysterious village!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony D. Fitzgerald
• Release date: Aug 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311263377

Anthony D. Fitzgerald

The story of how I became an author and eventually wrote ANJOBU, is probably not the typical story of many writers.As a child I found books rather boring and I preferred to pass the time watching TV or playing video games. It was not until I was 19 years old that a book called "The Lord of the Rings" turned me on to reading. From then on, people always saw me with a book in my hand for years. It was also during this time that the dream of being a writer first inspired me. I even started to work on a manuscript. However, I quickly realized how much work it actually is to make a real book out of a story and so the manuscript was never completed. When I then finished school and started working, both reading and writing faded into the background.At 21, I was suddenly grabbed by the travel bug and I went abroad: first to Ireland, then to New Zealand. There I worked in banking and insurance as a clerk and happily lived that way for several years. But more and more I realized how my office jobs no longer satisfied me. In fact, I became depressed about my job situation. I had begun to feel as if I sold my life for a salary. Had one asked me as an adolescent, what I wanted to do in my future, I certainly would not have answered that I wanted to work in an open plan office. But as life sometimes goes, one decision follows the next, and suddenly you find yourself in a situation in which you never wanted to be.One thing was clear: it was time to change something in my life!I thought about what I should do and remembered that I had always enjoyed writing in my youth. Suddenly the dream of being an author was alive again.But to be a writer is not easy. I worried whether I could actually pull it off. I often spoke with Beate, the illustrator of ANJOBU, during that time. She and I had already been very good friends before ANJOBU. Because Beate studied literature, her opinion was especially important to me on this matter. Immediately, she encouraged me to start writing again and gave me the strength to hold on to that dream.A few days later the decision was made: I really wanted to try it; I wanted to be a writer!That I became a children's book author has a reason too. I must confess that I love cartoons. This kind of art has always struck me as one of the most creative and I was impressed by the kind of ideas writers and artists came up with together.While I intensely devoted myself to media for children, I also realized how much I liked the fact that it actively tried to teach children values such as honesty, fairness and friendship. I was convinced that the world would be a better place if we would continue to remind adults of these values.Thus, I made exactly that my task with ANJOBU: I wanted to improve how people interacted with each other and wrote adventures designed to convey the morals of a children's book, but which were interesting and exciting enough to inspire adults to read them too.Now that I myself had a son, the idea of making the world a little better was more important to me than ever. This is also the reason why ANJOBU donates 10% of its profits to families in need every month.There is just one last point I would like to address. Maybe you remember how I said at the beginning that I thought as a child that reading was boring. This mistaken belief, which I shared with many other young people, I wanted to resolve with ANJOBU. It was my goal to create a modern and interesting book that could motivate children to read even in the technology-oriented world of today. Therefore, I often oriented myself towards new media such as TV series and video games, instead of traditional books, during the development of ANJOBU. And every time parents joyfully tell me how an ANJOBU book has been read by their family on their tablet, and how delighted the children were, I am glad that I kept my dream of becoming an author.Thank you,Anthony

Book preview

Preface

Our Heroes

Hi! I'm Jules. Jules the Train Girl, as they call me. See, I used to live in a bright yellow train that was standing right in the woods right amongst all the trees and other plants. And let me tell you: that train was the best home I ever could have wish for! What made it so special is that it had four railroad cars, each one decorated like a completely different world. My favorite cabin, for example, was filled with colorful mattresses and pillows all the way up to the ceiling. Here I could jump around as much as I wanted to, as if I were on a trampoline. Sometimes I even built secret tunnels out of mattresses, or large cushion fortresses!

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However, one morning, after a walk, I came back and suddenly my train was gone. Simply gone! Vanished into thin air, as if I had lost it!

I can lose quite a few things, such as my shoes or an eraser, but not a huge, yellow train! That was too much, even for me!

As you can imagine, I immediately began to search for my train. On the way I traveled across many exciting countries, making new friends and experiencing fantastic things. For example, did you know that there are countries where you greet people by pulling each other's ears? Or islands where you can pay for stuff with walnuts? Wouldn’t it be fun to spend a day in the woods finding walnuts, and in the evening trade them for a huge pile of chocolate?

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But excuse me! Maybe I should introduce myself properly first:

If you want to know what I’m like, it would probably be best to ask my two mice, which I always carry with me in my shirt pocket. Their names are Basil and Popcorn, after their favorite foods. These two are best friends, and inseparable. They are so clever that Basil often helps me with math exercises, and Popcorn dances for me when I’m sad! 

Basil and Popcorn would probably tell you that I like to eat pizza, but not the crust, because it’s too crispy; or that I like to tear up grass, even though you are not supposed to do that. Every morning I also take a walk in the woods, but only once I'm well rested and have had toast with chocolate for breakfast! On these walks, Basil and Popcorn always follow me, well-behaved and never leaving my side. Well, from time to time they get excited and slip under branches and leaves. But they always stay close enough for me to see them.

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Oh, and, besides my mice, I am also accompanied by a dragon. Yes, you heard right: a big, strong dragon. But don’t worry! He is a lovely dragon, who I call Dracula. Why Dracula, like the vampire? Because this dragon loves it when you read him scary stories! Even though he always gets frightened after hearing one and wants to sleep by my side. Of course, his real name isn’t Dracula. In fact, he did try to teach me the real one once, but it was so difficult to pronounce that my tongue hurt from the twisting for three days after trying! So trust me: you would rather call him Dracula, too! 

You are probably wondering where you can find such a dragon, so let me tell you how I met mine:

When I realized that my train was really gone, I cried so loudly that you could have heard me from the top of the highest mountain. Luckily for me, that’s exactly where Dracula was sitting, completely covered in snow, because he likes the cold. When he heard me cry, Dracula knew that he had to help me, because he knew how it feels to want something with all your heart.

You see, Dracula hasn't always been a big, strong dragon. There was a time when he was just a tiny lizard! And, just like I was desperate to find my train, Dracula was desperate to become a dragon. A dragon, as in the old tales of heroes: proud, brave and noble. Dracula had no other wish on this planet.

Then, on a night when the stars were shining especially bright, his wish came true. Dracula fell asleep a tiny lizard and woke up a huge dragon!

Now you’re probably asking yourself how that's even possible. Well, nobody knows. Maybe it was because a wizard helped him out, or maybe Dracula had been wishing for it so badly that it just had to come true…

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However, although Dracula had longed for the miracle to happen, he did not have an easy start as a dragon. He may have looked like a real one, yet he still was very clumsy on his feet.

Just imagine what it would feel like if you woke up one morning as someone else. Naturally you would have to get used to walking with new legs! And, as if that wasn’t enough for Dracula, now that he was so tall, he suddenly realized he was also afraid of heights!

Soon, all the hassle started feeling like too much for poor Dracula. He had always been a tiny lizard and suddenly he had wings and—was he supposed to fly? Fly higher and further than any lizard before him? No, no! Dracula just wanted to hide underneath a rock and make it all go away. Problem being that there was no rock big enough for Dracula to hide now!

In despair, Dracula covered his face with his paws and shook his head. His whole life, he'd only ever had one dream: he’d wanted to become a big, strong dragon. Now that his wish had come true, he was not happy at all. In fact, he was terrified. What should he do now? Had he wished for the wrong thing? Maybe he should have wished for owning a comfortable bed, instead of becoming a dragon...

But, before long, Dracula realized that being paralyzed with fear was not going to get him anywhere. He gathered all his courage and began to put one foot in front of the other. ‘Sometimes new situations are scary,’