INSPIRATIONAL CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The Tiger Who Sleeps Under My Chair Exploring mental illness in children’s books Imagine huge waves pounding the shore, rain pouring in torrents and wind whipping up the spray. After storms is the best time to go fossil hunting on the Jurassic Coast in the South of England. Mary Anning, the Victorian palaeontologist, would often be seen fossil-hunting in Lyme Regis after a storm. I grew up on the coast in Devon, digging enormous sand holes with my sister and scouring the tidelines for treasure. The idea of fossils emerging from the cliffs after a storm, like long-buried secrets from the past, inspired my book, The Tiger Who Sleeps Under My Chair. First, we meet Emma and
her brother James in Victorian London. Emma is being kept hidden away in the attic and James is becoming worryingly obsessed with a stuffed tiger at the museum. Then we meet Rosie and her classmate Jude, who live in Devon. Rosie too has become worryingly fascinated with tigers. Not only that, but she has been missing for four days and four nights when Jude finds her behaving strangely, wearing a tiger-striped scarf. Like the threads in the scarf or the spiral of an ammonite fossil, the two timelines spin closer and closer, until at last we discover how they are connected. This story explores mental
Dark Cloud Recognising children’s mental health struggles The changes were subtle at first. My young daughter had started a French immersion programme at a new school. She was nervous, everything was new, we thought she’d settle in. Instead of that happening, things got worse. She withdrew, she had irrational fears, but worst of all, she stopped smiling. My previously happy kid was replaced by someone we hardly recognised. It felt like she was slipping away. It’s something that happens to many families when children experience mental health struggles. Luckily for us, we realized she was having a negative reaction to a new
prescription allergy medication, so she stopped the medication and we got her psychological help. Slowly, over about a year, she came back to us. But that dark cloud left a very long shadow over our whole family. Part of writing this book was my way of processing that experience, of giving language to what I saw as a parent. Asking kids, or even adults,
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illness through a family. I hope readers will find it an inspiring and hopeful book which celebrates the importance of empathy and diverse experiences. HANNAH FOLEY Author www.hannah-foley.co.uk
to describe how they’re feeling can be difficult. Putting complex emotions into words is challenging. I wanted to use language that evoked images in this book so young readers and parents could see what I saw, in the hopes that it would give them tools to recognise these feelings in themselves and in their loved ones. Penny Neville-Lee’s beautiful illustrations are the perfect pairing for this story about a young girl struggling with depression. While the cloud in this book has no silver lining, it does offer readers the most important message: hope. ANNA LAZOWSKI Author www.annalazowskibooks.com TURN TO PAGES 50-53 to read about positive psychology at Surbiton High School
