Published by HarperCollins Publishers (2022)I wrote Anna’s Song when I was 19.
When sending over the first draft, I also sent a piece of ‘demo art’ I made while writing. After seeing this, Collins agreed to let me illustrate the book as well as write it. Thus, Anna’s song became my first professional job as an illustrator.
It was an incredibly valuable and enlightening experience.
Front cover (textless) for Anna's Song (2022)
A double page spread for Anna's Song (2022)
A double page spread for Anna's Song (2022)
Supplementary images for activity page in Anna's Song (2022)
Photograph of the final published version of Anna's song (2022)
A little more about it…
Anna’s Song is a fictional children’s book to help children aged 7 (school year 2-3) to learn how to read. It is sold by HarperCollins Publishing in a set of other books like it by authors from many varied walks of life. I am proud that Anna’s Song gets to be among them.
As I am autistic, I wanted to write a story reflecting the real life experiences of many autistic people: how being undiagnosed and bullied can effect your view of yourself and your symptoms. It is important to promote hope, so it also covers how friendship can help ease the sadness of your circumstances (as it did in my life as well).
The words “autistic” and “autism” are not decodable at this reading level, so the information about autism and how it effects Anna had to be provided at the end of the book for parents and teachers to be able to talk to their children about it.
It was important to me that the autism was actually addressed somewhere in the book, because if a child or their parent related to Anna’s Song in any way, it would be good to actually have a word to use to help them research or understand the condition. I was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) because of watching a documentary about it and seeing myself in the interviewees. If even one person read my book and realised that they may also be autistic, then that would be wonderful to me.