This afternoon I saw a post on Facebook that some neighborhood kids had set up a comic book stand and were selling comic books they had created.

I had to check that out.

And I’m glad I did. They were awesome.

Mason and Layla are both 8-years-old and they write and draw their own stories. They were selling the comics to make money for summer fun (when they closed down the stand they had enough to go to the pool!).

I bought two stories, “The Evil Pickle” by Layla and “The Evil Pizza” by Mason. I made a video reading the stories so you can get the full experience:

Kids are awesome, right?

Go Be Creative

Sometimes we make the mistake of telling kids, “You’re too young.” That’s crazy. You can get started any time. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, you can create something cool. And that’s awesome.

I wrote my first book (Mike, The Cat) in first grade. My daughter and I wrote a book together (The Stephanies) when she was six. Both of my kids like to write these long, intricate stories (and I didn’t push them into it or encourage them—they did it on their own).

Kids being creative is pretty awesome. So keep it up. I hope to see more from Layla and Mason and their comic book stand, and I hope they inspire other kids to create amazing stuff.

(This reminds me of an ebook I wrote a few years ago for iThemes, Kids Creating Stuff Online: Inspiring the Innovators of the Future.)