Frank McKinney based his young reader's fantasy novel on more than 1,100 walks to school he made with his daughter Laura, a student at St. Vincent's Ferrer School in Delray Beach.

Frank McKinney used the same dedication in writing a bestselling young reader’s fantasy novel from his tree house office high above North Ocean Boulevard in Delray Beach as he did becoming the rock star of real estate. McKinney, a self-made real estate mogul and Delray Beach resident since 1989, put the same passion he put in selling the Acqua Liana “green mansion” in Manalapan into his book "Dead Fred, Flying Lunchboxes and the Good Luck Circle." McKinney wrote from 4 to 7 a.m. daily, long before the sun arose about what happened on more than 1,100 trips when he walked his daughter Laura, 10, an aspiring actress, to her school at St. Vincent’s Ferrer School on George Bush Boulevard in Delray Beach.
“The strangler fig plant that grows through the tree house is big part of the story. Locals will notice other aspects and we have this wooded pathway, it’s kind of eerie that my daughter and I would walk back on that’s in the story as well,” McKinney said.
The book also includes a 50-foot prehistoric shark. McKinney’s daughter Laura is the protagonist trying to save a 3-inch shiner fish named Dead Fred from the mean underworld of Megaldon, the evil antagonist.
“Ppeekk, pronounced peekie is my character’s name. Peekie was my nickname when I was a young girl,” Laura said.
In the book manatees talk, starfish sing, clownfish tell jokes and students trying to get to school battle the underworld led by Megaldon by tossing lunchboxes in defense off the George Bush Boulevard drawbridge to the evil down below. Exploding coconut bombs and strangler fig lassos fight the terrifying beast and his rogue army.

McKinney has five book titles under his belt as an author.

McKinney awakes early each morning often before 4 a.m. to begin writing in his tree house. He walks down the wooden drawbridge to the treehouse each morning.

The tree house sits high above the sea grape plants on North Ocean Boulevard.