These days, the news feed on my phone has turned into a book update list, ha ha. My algorithm must be set to books, books and more books, which is true to my life, pretty much.
Anyway, here’s the latest book news article I read: Cheltenham boy’s storytelling method helps others with literacy. As an author who works in secondary education (yes, dear readers, sadly creative writing does not keep a roof over my head) and also has a child in primary education, it goes without saying that I value literacy and encourage both reading and creative writing for children. In the article (link above), the mother wrote down her son’s stories and turned them into a book, which they have now published.
The funny thing is, this is something I did four years ago, although I didn’t officially publish my son’s booklet to buy widely. While he dictated his story, Five sea creatures on a tropical island, I typed it. He then painted an A3 sized picture of the sea creatures, which I scanned and uploaded as the cover of his book. I then printed copies of his story from Lulu (Lulu is also a great printing service for novel proof copies, btw fellow authors), and we gave these as presents to his teachers, family and friends for Christmas in 2021.
It was lovely to see the delight on my son’s face as he unboxed copies of his own book and held his creation for the first time, as a published author. Now, four years later while he is in the ‘Gold’ reading group in his year group at school, it’s a lovely keepsake, and something he enjoys reading aloud to me.
If there are children in your family, printing their work to give as presents is something I recommend. It encourages children to use their imagination, teaches narrative structure, and of course makes handy, personalised gifts; not to mention spending quality literary time with the child in your life.
Leilanie Stewart 