KJ Mullins-Toronto: Laura Konkel isn’t much older than the kids she is writing for in her book, Wannabee In …London With Me?. The 21-year-old from Ontario is back in Canada after being a student at the University of St Andrews.

Laura’s book for kids, Wannabee In…London, is more than just a tourism book for kids. The profits of the book will be donated to global children’s charities.

Laura is an International Relations student who wants to pay it forward. With her book she hopes to be able to raise donations for various charities. This means she isn’t getting rich off the sale of her book.

The book on London is the first in a travel series that is aimed at children. It was published to merge with the wave of visitors going to London for the 2012 Olympic Games.

As a young girl Laura and her family spent time doing charity work.

“Helping others is important to my family. It is a wonderful thing to know that small but meaningful things can make such a huge difference in people’s lives.”

During her young life Laura has already traveled to Zambia. At 16 she went to the African nation hit hard with the AIDS crisis. She and her classmates helped to build homes through Habitat for Humanity.

“Most of the village children were orphaned because of AIDS. I will never forget Richard, or Lillian or any of the other children who will no longer be just a statistic but little people who loved to laugh and play.”

‘Wannabee in London’ has been endorsed by the British High Commission and includes a foreword by The Lord Mayor of London, David Wootton.

Laura saw a need for travel books aimed at the younger adventurers as a child.

“Travelling with my parents as a child, I discovered that there is a need for travel books specifically designed for children and not merely directed toward their parents. The WANNABEE travel series aims to change the concept of family travel by selecting things unique to each featured city that aren’t what they would ordinarily expect to see as a tourist.”