Graduate launches two books to encourage youngsters – FE Information

“I wished my children and everybody’s children to study from an early age that it’s okay for them to be who they’re”

College of Sunderland graduate and mum-of-two Laura Maclennan is utilizing her writing abilities to show youngsters that kindness is stronger than unkindness and that our variations make us higher.

Laura, from Newcastle, has written two books – Don’t Be Foolish! and Don’t Be Scared! – impressed by her two-year-old son Seth.

Each books function the characters Seth and the Rainbow Monsters – the actual Seth is Laura’s ‘rainbow child’, a time period used for a child born after a miscarriage or different devastating child loss.

With imaginary Seth and his vibrant monster pals, Laura wished to honour the color Seth has delivered to her household’s lives, in addition to convey pleasure and kindness to bedtime tales and school rooms in all places.

Laura, 40, stated: “The primary e-book Don’t Be Foolish! is about Seth wanting to construct a treehouse and asking his rainbow monster pals for assist. The monsters need to assist Seth, however they don’t need to work with one another as a result of all of them look totally different – they’re all totally different shapes and hues – however Seth says, “don’t be foolish” and talks about how our variations are our strengths and the way all of us play our half in creating particular issues.”

Laura hopes that the message of Don’t Be Foolish! will encourage kindness and acceptance and present youngsters they are often precisely who they’re born to be, by remembering it’s okay to #BeMoreSeth.

“I wished my children and everybody’s children to study from an early age that it’s okay for them to be who they’re, and that they don’t need to be like everybody else to have an effect,” Laura stated.

“That is the place the hashtag #BeMoreSeth comes from. I would like youngsters to think about it themselves and problem their pals or bullies to #BeMoreSeth after they see intolerance and discriminatory behaviour. It’s all learnt behaviour, so let’s educate them a greater approach by means of story as an alternative.”

Laura added: “In Don’t Be Scared! every monster involves the treehouse with a special worry akin to shifting residence, new colleges and new infants, and Seth tells them “don’t be scared” as a result of our fears assist us to develop if we discuss them.”

After graduating from Sunderland with a Performing Arts diploma in 2004, Laura went on to develop into an skilled instructor, notably in drama, and throughout the Particular Academic Wants sector.

Now, she is having fun with flourishing as a broadcast author – having up to now offered greater than 1,000 copies of Don’t Be Foolish! and Don’t Be Scared! mixed.

Laura stated: “I simply need to thank my husband Brett for all his assist, in addition to my illustrator Kylie Dixon, my editor Alexa Tewkesbury, my writer Alexa Whitten from Compass Publishing and Melissa Middleton, my enterprise guru.

“I additionally need to thank everybody who has purchased and beloved my books and obtained me into colleges with it. It’s pure magic to see how a lot these characters are beloved and the way a lot youngsters are already rising in confidence simply by being courageous sufficient to personal who they’re.”

So what’s subsequent for Laura?

“Sooner or later I hope to create a theatre in training manufacturing utilizing Seth and the Rainbow Monsters for main colleges to assist anti-bullying and variety curriculums,” she stated.

“I additionally see a cartoon sooner or later! Absolutely, they’ll let me narrate with my dramatic {qualifications}?!”

Laura has additionally plucked up the braveness to publish her very first youngsters’s e-book impressed by her daughter Eliza, now aged six, which has been sitting on her laptop computer because it was written in 2016. It is going to be launched subsequent summer time.

Within the meantime, Don’t Be Foolish! and Don’t Be Scared! are in the stores at Waterstones in Durham and Seven Tales in Newcastle. Or you may order a replica on-line at www.sethandtherainbowmonsters.com

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