I have my first book event happening in a couple of weeks. If you are in the Beckenham area of London, please come along and say hello, buy a book or two or three, take part in the prizes and chat with us authors. We don't bite, I can assure you. Lol. I will be selling my books at a discounted price, as I usually do at in person events.
I hope to see people there, even if it might rain.
Reflection — “The Mirror in the Story”
There is a quiet kind of magic that happens when a child sees themselves on the page.
For autistic children, that moment can be rare—too rare.
Too often, the stories they are given to read are mirrors that fog when they lean in close, pages that almost reflect them but not quite. Characters are flattened into stereotypes or erased altogether, their brilliance and beauty distilled into misunderstanding.
But children deserve stories that feel like home.
They deserve to see their way of moving through the world honoured, not corrected.
They deserve to find characters who flap their hands in delight, who find safety in patterns, who love deeply but differently—and to know that these ways of being are not broken, just beautifully specific.
When autistic children read books that reflect their lives, something sacred happens: belonging.
They begin to understand that the world has room for them. That they are not strange for needing quiet. That their way of thinking—their honesty, their attention to detail, their sensitivity—is not something to hide but something to celebrate.
Representation is not decoration; it is recognition.
It tells a child: you exist, and your existence matters.
And in a world that too often tells autistic children to mask, to shrink, to be less—books become a gentle rebellion. A place where they can rest in truth, unedited. A place where they can be fully known.
Now more than ever, we need those stories—because belonging cannot be assumed; it must be built.
Because when autistic children see themselves on the page, they begin to imagine futures that include them.
And that imagining, that quiet seed of self-acceptance, can grow into the kind of confidence that changes everything.
This is one reason why I write what I do. For the other two reasons, come along to the book fayre tomorrow (poster in previous post) and find out from me.
This is Sammi an unlucky squirrel who features in my first picture book for children of 3-7 years-old. I first wrote the story some years ago and it was published as a fiction story in a small press magazine about animals. His story sat on my computer for years after that until this year when I decided to show him to the world as a picture book. I am so pleased with it. It is out now on Amazon here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191511408X. Or if you want to get a copy in person from me and at a discounted price, I will be at the Beckenham Book Festival next Sunday 2 July at the Coach and Horses pub, Burnhill Road, Beckenham. There will be lots of local authors there and we will be selling our books in the beer garden at the back of the pub. I will also be selling my other children's books and my memoir. Come and say hello to us all. Here's hoping for a day like today. Sunny and no sign of rain.
