I wrote a children’s book!

Exciting news, we’re now on Kindle!

They told us to pivot. Rethink your business, they said, to those of us affected by Coronavirus. So being a travel blogger with no where to travel to, I did just that – embraced the pivot and wrote a story about it.

Well not a story about the pivot, because I’m not a life coach, but about the Coronavirus. A story for 2-6 year olds about living in lockdown.

It started as a little rhyme in my head originally for my (great) nephew and niece (the ‘great’ is in brackets because I like to pretend I’m not that old). But originally it was for Albie and Gussie – who were feeling a bit fussy. It featured their parents, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and some other rellies.

It’s about a family living in their self-isolation bubble and going on a social-distancing walk with each family member including the dog. It was a big bubble. Then they come upon Coronavirus, the meanest germ of all, sitting on a park bench and everyone springs into action to get rid of it once and for all.

Buy it on Amazon and download it to your Kindle reader for the holidays!

Lucy Lou Beats the Coronavi...Shop on Amazon

In the original version I just used free images downloaded from Pixabay, set it up as a 12-page book and emailed it to them. Then I was commissioned by a friend to write one for her new grand daughter named Lucy Lou (who had things to do) – and mummy and daddy, and two sets of grandparents and two aunts. Then one for Mali Moo and her huge family with a new baby that suddenly arrived during lockdown (baby Mia who was suddenly here!). Then another friend commissioned one for baby Axel (sitting in a satchel) and his grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins, then along came baby Vivie (wearing a skivvy) and I got to thinking…

The story is a time capsule. It’s about the families all over the world who were locked down during the pandemic of 2020, so I wrote a new one called Lucy Lou beats the Coronavirus with Lucy Lou (because it’s cute!), baby Liam and big brother Jake, their dog, their parents and their grandparents off for a social-distancing walk, coming upon the virus and what they all did to get rid of it.

I paid an illustrator who created the images to go with the actions, then I typeset the book myself (I used to be a graphic designer in a former life) and sold it as a downloadable pdf online for NZ$6.99 with $2 going to local charities.

But it soon became clear that people wanted a physical book, that reading it on an iPad or laptop was not as fun as opening the pages of a book in bed.

If you’re in New Zealand you can buy the paperback Lucy Lou beats the Coronavirus for shipping NZ-wide buy clicking on the link below.