How Kind! A Picture Book Created with Families in Tameside

Jan 28

For the past four years, I've been creating picture books with families in Tameside as part of the Storymakers project.

Working with illustrator Andy Rowland, we've created some great books that promote community cohesion, empathy and understanding.

Aimed at families with preschool children, the Storymakers project has been a huge success, engaging over 500 families each year with books and reading. The project is helping families discover how to get the most from sharing books with their children and has brought hundreds of new families into the fantastic support system that Tameside Libraries have to offer.

This year, our theme is Be Kind and we've come up with a fabulous story about an elephant called Elvis who sets out to rescue a crocodile in distress!

Picture books are usually created by a team that includes author, illustrator, designer, editor and sales & marketing people. Editors are there to help ensure the text is tip-top and a designer will decide what the overall look of the book should be including fonts, text placement and size, and what the images should include.

But for the Storymakers project, Andy and I do all this ourselves!

This year we've worked with families learning at home, and with groups of children attending nursery, all of whom have given us loads of great ideas and suggestions to make this story sing. I am super proud of everyone who's got involved!