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Orangeville author’s new book ‘Fredbits’ offers guidance for a new generation

September 4, 2025   ·   2 Comments

By Joshua Drakes

Orangeville author Fred Dyke has spent a lifetime gathering wisdom from faith, family, and experience. Now he has distilled it all into Fredbits – a book of 365 bite-sized, single-page insights that blend his relationship with Christianity and his reflections on life.

For Dyke, the book is a way of passing on guidance, encouragement, and a touch of humor to the next generation, offering lessons learned from years of walking with God and through his many varied careers.

“I wanted to write a book to bring back a sense of sensibleness or common sense to the world,” Dyke said. “I feel that there’s a lack of an acceptance of truth, and people have gotten away from reality. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I wanted to write a book that maybe might help some people find their way.”

Dyke never set out to be a writer – in fact, he didn’t even like reading.

“I hated reading,” he said. “I could read a book and I just wouldn’t, I didn’t have an idea what it was saying, especially poetry and stuff like that. I could read history, but that was purely for fact checking.”

He said that started to change after working in various careers.

“I wrote my first book in 2003,” Dyke said. “It was on management, because the more I dealt with management, the more I saw the challenges of management. I discovered most managers never set out to be managers. They started as mechanics or nurses and got promoted, but without the training to go along with it. So, therefore, I felt a need to cover it in a small book, 10 common things that managers should have or should do.”

This followed Dyke’s aversion to novels and his prior interest in instructional or historical reading.

Years later, Dyke began to notice how much the world had changed – attitudes were shifting, values evolving, and reality itself becoming subjective. He wanted to do something about it.

The challenge, Dyke explained, was how to present his ideas. His writing is deeply influenced by his relationship with God, yet he wanted the book to remain accessible to people of other faiths – or none at all. The solution came in the form of short, self-contained chapters.

“I debated in my mind for years, but I didn’t know how to present it,” he said. “I knew if I did a book on Christianity that nobody would buy it, or at least non-Christians wouldn’t buy it. The other thing is, most people don’t read for long periods anymore. They want to get in and get out. So I decided on one-page chapters. You can read one over coffee, in the bathroom, anywhere really.”

The result is a book readers can pick up and put down at any time. No page is dependent on the last, so you can flip to any spot and find a reflection, a piece of advice, or even a joke.

Some pages deal with practical lessons, like setting daily priorities. Others are designed to spark reflection on relationships, conflict, or generational differences. A few even take on a playful rhythm, like the first page, which Dyke describes as sort of like a rap:

“Do you have all the answers? Well, what are the questions? Are you happy? Are you sad? Does the slightest thing make you mad? What about your moods? Do they vary with your foods? Are you up or are you down? What causes you to frown? What will it take to give you a lift? If I say the wrong thing, will you be miffed?”

Beyond humor, Dyke also confronts deeper themes. The most meaningful passages to him are those that touch on Christianity, truth, and the struggle he sees in today’s culture between subjective feelings and objective reality.

“If you look at page 285, there’s an example of how subjective truth is and how people twist things,” he said. “You hear this expression a lot of times: ‘follow your heart.’ It’s quite common, but Jesus said, ‘follow me.’ Your heart is not always right, and whether you follow Jesus or not, I’m challenging people to question their feelings, to question their own hearts.”

For Dyke, Fredbits is more than a book – it’s a legacy. By weaving humor, reflection, and faith into short, daily lessons, he hopes to spark conversations across generations and encourage readers to pause, reflect, and search for truth in a world that often feels short on it.

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