While they live thousands of miles apart, Mary Jess and her father, Paul Adlam can’t be stopped when it comes to their ability to form a creative duo.
Their latest creation is ‘Ernie’s Big Red Nose’, a children’s book that is not only perfectly snotty, but carries vital messages at a time when the world needs to pull together to stop the spread of infection.
Ernie is a friendly giant living in the hills above a village that last year won the Tidiest Village Competition. Ernie develops the dreadful Red Nose Flu that makes his red nose glow and the slimy snot from his sneezing smothers everything in the village.
No one heeds his warnings on how to stop the infection from spreading and soon the whole village is suffering from the Red Nose Flu. As winter draws in, the village becomes a slippery, dangerous place as the slime from Ernie's nose freezes. A village meeting is called to discuss how to stop the snot. A vote decides to make Ernie a giant patchwork handkerchief that might help him and everyone joins in the task.
At first it seems to work but Ernie can't always get his hanky out in time. Then, in a flash of brilliance, he decides to tie the hanky round his face as a face mask. This is so successful that all the villagers copy his example and the Red Nose Flu epidemic fades away.
The villagers set about cleaning the snotty mess up in their village, ready for the Tidiest Village Competition. Once again, they are successful and are awarded the silver cup.
“The story may be totally engrossing and fun, but there’s some very important information that applies to humanity’s present struggle,” explains Paul. “Young readers will learn about the vital steps we can all take to stop the spread of infection, and why we need to help each other and work together for the common goal of our safety. Of course, it’s all wrapped up in a story they won’t forget any time soon.”
Continuing, “As a father, I’m so proud to have been able to collaborate with my daughter on this project. We currently have two other books in the works – so get started on volume one today, because there’s more to come!”
Reviews have been outstanding. One reader writes, “What a great book. Bought two copies for my grandchildren. My ten year old loved it, even though she usually hates anything about snot!! She loved the colourful pages and illustrations and how the story rhymes. Excellent book for teachers to use in schools during this surreal time in the world. I hope my three year old loves it when she gets it for her birthday on Sunday. Look forward to seeing another book by you soon.”
Another adds, “A great book! Great illustrations and so bright and colorful. The story is so relevant and a fantastic way to help children understand the current pandemic in a fun way. My nephews and nieces love the story and the younger ones are particularly fascinated by Ernie's big red nose which is brilliantly illustrated. A great book for reading at home and in schools. Highly recommend!”
‘Ernie’s Big Red Nose’ is available now:
Paperback - https://amzn.to/2LhI8lI
eBook - https://amzn.to/3b8pCqH.
About the authors, in their own words:
Mary Jess - From the age of 3, I grew up in rural West Wales with my parents and brother and sister. I was the youngest and reading books and singing was a big part of my family's daily routine.
Although a Welsh girl at heart, I had a passion for travelling and spent years dreaming about moving overseas. I was fortunate enough to to spend time in Australia, the beautiful Caribbean, the magical country of New Zealand and Malaysia where I fell in love with Asia. From an early age I always saw myself moving to Australia which I now call home and where I work as an Events Manager, Yoga teacher and more recently, author.
Whilst living in Malaysia, I discovered yoga and spent some months in India deepening my yoga practice and developing my passion and love for this way of life. It was in India on my fifth visit where I met my husband Arran. We soon fell in love and were blessed with our son Cai.
My son's love for books and my passion for yoga sparked the idea to start writing children's books. I put pen to paper and managed to get some ideas down. After sharing them with my dad, he helped me to develop the rhymes for a children's yoga book.
At the same time, we also developed the character of Ernie the giant, from an idea sparked in an infant classroom by my mum over 40 years ago.
When the Covid virus started to affect the whole world, we expanded the giant story and verses to make it relevant to the pandemic and so Ernie's Big Red Nose evolved.
Paul Adlam - I am a 73 year old now retired. I started my working life as a Science teacher and moved into adult training later as a Senior Advisor, Assessor and Verifier of NVQ's
When I was 6 and my sister 9, the family moved away from the East End of London and throughout my school life we lived in Dagenham and later Ilford.
After qualifying as a science teacher I taught in several Comprehensive Schools in Dagenham before getting married to Nesta, a Welsh primary school teacher who worked in East Ham, London. Over the next few years we had 3 children, Stephen, Hannah and Rhian.
When Rhian was 3, we made the huge decision to move to West Wales, about 20 miles from Aberystwyth. Nesta was able to carry on with her teaching career and mine changed to adult education and training which I was involved with until retirement. Much of my spare time was occupied renovating our derelict 200 year old Welsh cottage.
Following retirement, Nesta and I spent a great deal of our time travelling to see our children and their families who were now spread across the world in the USA, Australia and the UK.
When Rhian told me about her writing plans and asked for some support in developing the rhymes, I was pleased to help in any way I could. What this moment also did was to bring to mind a long forgotten short story written by Nesta during her early teaching career - The Giant's Handkerchief. It didn't take much persuasion for Rhian to agree to help develop this into a second short rhyming book.
The emergence of Covid19 changed our plan and we modified the Giant storyline so it would reflect the Covid pandemic. Vox Illustration, our illustrators, also tweaked the images to suit the changes.
Grandchildren, family and close friends were enlisted to give feedback on the story and images, as the project developed. Finally after much proofreading and editing, in late October 2020, we were able to upload Ernie's Big Red Nose onto Amazon as a paperback and ebook.
With tongue in cheek I now claim that I'm no longer retired but that I'm a published author! However, I found the process so absorbing and enjoyable that we have now completed our second Ernie book - Ernie Goes Green and the illustrators will start work in January.
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