Deano Yipadee (Mr Yipadee) rocketed onto the Australian scene with the release of his debut book JBRS. It quickly sold out of two print runs before Christmas and shot straight to the Number One spot on the Best Sellers Childrens Book Charts in NZ. It was the 5th best selling children’s book in 2016 for the entire year, even though it was out for only the last three months! The hit song accompanying the book originated from his Christmas album that climbed to Number One in the UK album charts in 2015, beating out Disney’s Now That’s What I Call Disney and Cbeebies The Album.
Deano brings years of professional experience with him. He's worked with writers from Bob The Builder, Thomas The Tank Engine, headlined the famous ‘Kidz Field’ at the Glastonbury Music Festival in the UK, and worked with international TV stars. Having spent the last few years touring with some of the presenters from CBeebies TV Channel, Mr Yipadee topped the best sellers charts in the UK on numerous occasions and also worked alongside some of the biggest names in the industry. He recently completed a second tour with Best Selling Children's Author and Wonky Donkey creator Craig Smith. During his 'Happy I’m Me’ Tour, Deano performed in front of more than 60,000 children in schools and festivals across Aussie and New Zealand. With performances on prime time for both TV1 and TV3, Deano’s second book, Nee Naw The Little Fire Engine, landed at the top of the best sellers list since its launch in the first week of February 2017. His third book Stink-o-saurus is due out in October, 2017.
A compelling, energetic, world class performer, Deano presents his highly interactive shows and presentations at festivals, libraries, schools, early learning centres, day care facilities, special schools, business groups, public events and literary festivals including Voices on the Coast. His mission and purpose is inspiring children to Laugh, Love, and Believe in themselves and he does this through fun music, hilarious best selling books, chart topping apps, and high energy performances and workshops.
Deano currently resides on the sunny Sunshine Coast with his two little girls and wife.
SHOW
Deano offers a unique opportunity to engage and captivate the full school aged from preschool up until age 10, in a high energy hilarious live stage show. His performances include interactive props and instruments for some of the kids to join the performance. There is singing, dancing, musical comedy and of course a chance for the children to laugh, read, and sing along to Deano’s best selling books and songs. Nee Naw The Little Fire Engine (Scholastic) tells the tale of acceptance and love for yourself—inspiring kids to be happy ‘just the way they are.’ The show is suitable for full school performances or can be broken down into classes or year groups.
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
Deano also offers a fun creative writing workshop where, working together with groups of approximately 25 children, they produce a fun story in just 30 minutes. Using the suggestions of the kids, they create a rough draft of a story and also (in a surprise twist) show the kids how they have also written a song! It’s very fast-paced, very silly, and highly engaging and entertaining for the kids. The workshops prove fully interactive, and the story is created by their suggestions. We cover many of the fundamental elements of creative writing and turning it into a published book including:
- The ‘purpose’ behind a story
- Finding inspiration
- Creative mindset
- Getting started
- Rough draft
- On-going development/expansion
- Testing your work/asking for help
- Editorial
- Putting words to music.
This can also be linked to your existing creative writing curriculum requirements should you have special requirements.
Learn with laughter as best-selling Scholastic author Deano Yipadee captivates all of your classes simultaneously during his compelling and groundbreaking Live Digi-Show. Children sing, bounce and laugh along with his collection of chart-topping books while guiding the direction of the show via live interactive chat. But which class will convince Deano that their class is, in-fact, ‘the most awesome class in the whole school??'
The show hilariously demonstrates several fundamentals of Creative Writing, including chat around where ideas and inspiration come from. The show also encourages kids to realise that anyone who has an idea can turn it into a book! Exploring both making and learning from mistakes, Deano highlights the process of creativity used by the illustrator, including storyboarding.
With over 70 Live Virtual Shows performed in the past few months, here’s a taste of what schools rave about:
Digi Show Testimonials:
“Just pure fun, totally engaged children and loved the banter between Deano and their class teachers. His style means great interaction with children - singing, movement, loud noises, silliness and all those things kids love.” - St Francis Catholic School
“A wonderful way to expose our children to authors...highly recommend!! Thank you!”
- St Mary's Catholic School Tauranga
“The children loved hearing Deano calling out their names and the names of their friends and teachers, and having their ideas responded to...on the TV! So personalised and interactive! Deano's rhythm, rhyme, music and humour made for a brilliant show” - Remarkables Primary School
“Our students were so excited to have a new on-line experience with the author and to hear the names of our teachers and their schoolmates used throughout the presentation. They loved the humour of the stories and the songs.” - Rata Street School
“Deano Yipadee was absolutely fantastic! Everyone had the best time and we all had smiles on our faces. He made us laugh and have a good boogie. We can't wait to have him back again!” - Halswell School
“Hilarious show! Gave us all a lift. The kids were really engaged. It was a great idea to move this experience online and to make it [as] interactive.” - Abbotsford School
“It was amazing! The kids and teachers were buzzing and were so engaged!” - Rāwhiti School
“The show was fantastic. It was like Mr Yipadee was in our school. Being involved in a show via Youtube was a first for us, but was so personal.” - Port Chalmers School
“Even our year 7&8 students really enjoyed the performance!” - Waikaka School
“Fully engaged students of all ages. Incredible!” - St Anne's School Woolston
“This was a fantastic virtual visit and we would definitely be keen to do it again.” - Paroa School
“Thank you for the great show. The children loved it. It was different and exciting to have the online show.”
- Ohaeawai School
“The students and teachers loved hearing their names! We never would have thought of having a virtual visit at our school, being so central, but it was a huge success and actually brought a nice dimension to the interaction.” - Sylvia Park School
“It was very well done. We would love to have such a rich experience again.” - Mokoia School
“Hearing the whole school involved, the buzz echoed around the school [as we were] all watching the virtual visit at same time. Children loved hearing teachers names, and the interactiveness of adding the chat as response at the time was awesome.” - Awapuni School
“We loved how Deano interacted with the children via the chat function.
The teachers loved how he explained that it was alright to make mistakes and that he and his illustrator do that all the time, the key is to keep trying.” - Mellons Bay School
“Just loved it! It was fun, it was interactive, and fast moving. The kids had an absolute ball watching the session and joining in with all the dancing and singing.” - Greymouth Main School
“High energy and a really fun show with great messages around reading and writing.”
- Panama Road School
“It was all fab...so professional and perfectly pitched. The kids loved it…” - Southwell School
“So engaging for all ages!” - Hedgehope School
“All children and adults were thoroughly entertained. It was heart-warming to see our year 5/6 pupils so engaged with a picture book and the entertainment it can provide.” - Linwood Avenue School
“The students and staff all absolutely loved Dean's show. It was fantastic how he integrates the teachers online comments in to the show.” - St Joseph's School
Testimonials
Fantastic, hilarious author/entertainer! Had the kids and teachers in stictches and an excellent ability to bring the students' attention back to focus after an exciting part of the performace.
Saints Peter and Paul's School - May, 2026Great rapport with the children and a very funny and engaging performance.
Pacific Lutheran College - August, 2023Entertaining, engaging and inspiring
Buddina State School - October 2022Very engaging and entertaining. Children loved him!
John Paul College - September 2021Fantastic show, very engaging considering it is virtual. I sent him the names of the teachers – they were very surprised when they heard him comment. We were also able to tell him what different students were doing through the chat window. The students loved hearing their names and could not work out how he could see them! It was very easy to connect – just clicked on the link he sent and we were on.
Islamic College of Brisbane - September 2020
Knock Knock
Ron the Royal Guard
Nee Naw and the Cowtastrophe
Stink-o-saurus
Jingle Bells Rudolph Smells
Nee Naw the Little Fire Engine
Queensland
Speaker type
- Author
- Storyteller / Performer
Audience
- Preschool
- Prep - Year 2
- Year 3-6
Links
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Don't forget to check out the Touring Speakers page as we have lots of speakers on the move this year.
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
New Releases See all books
Touring Speakers See all tour dates
| Speaker | Location | Tour dates | Book now |
|---|---|---|---|
Brisbane | Sunshine Coast | 10 Jun - 11 Jun 2026 | ||
Sydney - Last Day | 12 Jun - 12 Jun 2026 | ||
Perth - Last Day | 26 Jun - 26 Jun 2026 | ||
Brisbane | 01 Jul - 31 Aug 2026 | ||
Brisbane | Gold Coast | Sunshine Coast | 27 Jul - 31 Jul 2026 |
What people are saying
I was so incredibly thrilled to have you there! A little secret – you were an absolute favourite, both with me and the kids!! Thank you so much! I was doing some work with them after the sessions, and they were using your techniques! Amazing! If I can keep it going for a few years, I will definitely have you back!
Thank you for single-handedly bringing my 10 year old son back to reading.
We appreciated Maria's presentation because the children, and the teachers, not only found her engaging and inspiring, but it was refreshing to gain an author's perspective of non-fiction writing.
“We thoroughly enjoyed the workshop! Tiff’s use of props and visuals to connect with the themes in her beautiful book was very engaging and stimulating for our students. The students and I loved learning about Wonder Earth with Tiff”
Hit the nail on the head. Totally in line with the curriculum. Would recommend him to anyone in Australia, New Zealand, worldwide. Fantastic!
Pamela's visit was very well received by our girls. The PowerPoint presentations and worksheets she used to accompany her workshops with our year 8 and 10 girls were engaging and useful for the girls when thinking about how to successfully structure a story. I would thoroughly recommend Pamela for an author visit to other schools, particularly all girls' schools as many of her novels deal with females as the main protagonists.
We were delighted to host author and illustrator Katherine Battersby as part of our Book Week celebrations. Katherine delivered engaging and dynamic presentations to students from Prep through to Year 6, bringing her stories to life and captivating every audience. The students were especially drawn to her Cranky Chicken series, laughing along as they explored the quirky characters and storylines. One of the highlights was Katherine’s interactive illustration session, where students shared their [...]
Caz Goodwin’s author presentation at Carey Baptist Grammar School was brilliant. The children loved meeting a life-sized Daisy and we laughed at the antics of Daisy in the ‘Daisy Runs Wild’ theatre show. Caz shared plenty of authors’ tips to inspire young readers and writers, and answered the children’s questions about writing and ideas for stories. She gave children opportunities to engage with craft, language and writing, and non-fiction research on koalas. The children loved the Daisy stories [...]
Sophie was brilliant, informative, tailored to meet what the kids were doing, exploring in class. The writers workshop was also great, kids got a lot out of it and are enthusiastic to write and have their work shared with others. Really enjoyable.
Belinda’s presentation style was very suitable for our students. She connected well with all year levels and understood how to engage them. I was very impressed with her style personable and very approachable for students. I would welcome Belinda again to speak to our students.
At our Literature Event, Taryn talked to our Year 7 students about the importance of reading and gave many tips on creative writing. She was well organised, and we had a lovely day. In the last session’s question time, the final question asked by a teacher was not to Taryn but to the students. What were they taking away from the presentation? It was wonderful that the students’ answers were many and varied. Student feedback during the day included: She was really good, and I learnt so much. [...]
As part of our Literacy Day celebrations, we had a very special visit from author and illustrator duo, Haydn and Damien Crespan. The Crespan brothers shared their writing process, the detail behind each illustration and how they’ve overcome challenges such as a colourblind illustrator! We were truly captivated by their debut children’s book, ‘The Adventures of Triz’. Not to mention, their dinosaur display and the REAL fossils they brought for us to explore.
It was great to be able to contact Speakers Ink who could then recommend presenters to meet the needs of our school. Nothing was a hassle & booking speakers was seamless.