Author, author: Grandparents support grandson in writing a book.

What happens when you are on a trip with your grandfather and the road ahead is closed?

For six-year-old Ty Michael Bailey it was both an adventure and the inspiration to write Stop! The Road is Closed, a book based on an incident written in conjunction with his grandmother Susan Templin.

For many people travelling between Peachland and Summerland when Highway 97 was closed for road construction in 2008, it was a time of frustration.

Drivers were faced with having to either drive north around Okanagan Lake or take a water taxi – which also meant having no car when they reached the other side.

However, for young Ty Bailey, it was the beginning of a fun-filled adventure that would involve a huge fissure or crack in the mountainside and a potential rock slide, going for a ride in the water taxi, the gripping rescue of a mountain goat named Houdini, and meeting a whole lot of people.

Stop! The Road is Closed is a delightfully upbeat and positive story told through the eyes of Bailey and backed with a little help from the family.

“One day after our trip, it was raining, so I thought it would be neat to write a book about out adventure,” says Bailey, who told his grandmother what to write down before stapling and mailing the adventure together. “It was pretty awesome when they said it was going to be published.”

The book is published by Aaspirations Publishing in Mississauga, Ontario and is available at local bookstores.

“That’s me,” said Bailey when the box containing his book was opened. “That’s me, that’s my name on the cover.”