Happiness is like the Sunshine!

I am totally delighted with this year's Storymakers picture book, Happiness is Like the Sunshine, written by me and illustrated by Andy Rowland in collaboration with families in Tameside. 

The project is part of a wider initiative to welcome families into the library service and help parents and carers prepare preschool children for school.

Andy Rowland and I worked with families over a three month period, gathering ideas and sharing the book at every stage of development.  Without the usual help of editors and designers, Andy and I worked together to create this beautiful book all about emotions.

The story follows two bears on an adventure and uses the weather as a metaphor for all the different emotions little bear encounters on the journey.  There are so many warm and touching moments in the story, which is set in the sweeping landscapes of the North American wilderness. With lots of animals to spot along the way, we hope the book will help families and education settings deal with some of the big emotions that our little people are feeling.

Part of the project involves weekly storytime sessions in four local libraries and a zoom session for pre-schools, which now reaches over 900 children every week!

I'm so grateful to be involved in this incredible project and really proud of the book we've worked so hard to create this year.

Images are by the fabulous Darren Robinson Photography.