Phoebe, age seven who is from Corsham Primary School Broadwood has become one of the youngest published authors to come out of Britain, after writing a story about kindness while her mum battled through breast cancer during the pandemic.
Phoebe wowed judges and surprised her parents with her submission to a writing competition at her school, with an insightful story about her mum from a child's perspective. In April 2021, mum Charly was in recovery from surgery when the opportunity came up for children to write and submit a story.
Phoebe's story was among those chosen to receive the prize of six published copies, but the competition organiser and local children's author Helen Brian believed the story had much more potential. Phoebe's mum along with Carly from Peahen Publishing decided to put Phoebe’s book out into retail, to raise awareness of breast cancer but also children's ability to process difficult information.
Phoebe wrote this story herself and drew all the pictures which is quite an inspiration to children of a young age. Her dream was to be an author and suddenly, aged six – her dream came true.
The book Kindness can be used to show, adults and families, that kids can talk about difficult things, they can talk about cancer and what it means; they can ask those difficult questions and they can process the information. Writing this story has helped Phoebe process what was going on with her Mummy. And raising awareness of that gave Charly the momentum to publish it. Phoebe experienced Mummy's cancer and lockdown at the same time, and the way she has turned two difficult things into a positive story shows how much we as adults can learn from her.
Further details of Phoebe’s book and how to purchase it can be found at this link:
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