In her words

11-year-old's book a touching illustration of her sister’s challenges in life

CHILDREN often see things around them with a clarity and understanding that adults too often overlook. Their opinions and instincts have not developed to a cynical edge that comes with many years of experience, so they can embrace differences and difficulties of others with pure empathy.

Young Townsville student Luca Lewis, 11, is a perfect example of that innocent understanding of someone else’s personal challenges as she grows up with a sister who has been diagnosed with ADHD and autism.

Luca recently surprised her family with the publication of a book that she wrote and illustrated about her younger sister Billie.

The book was the idea of Ryan Catholic College teacher Kim Ballinger who encouraged her Higher Potential Learning students to all write a book.

Luca’s book, ‘Paisley Panda’, contains both life lessons and a number of coping strategies and methods that Luca has used with Billie in real life.

“I had a few different ideas on what to write about,” Luca said.

“But I didn’t really like them that much, but I just kept thinking about something based on Billie, and how good it would be to spread awareness.”

Luca’s parents Bernadette and Gavin were ‘blown away’ when the young student first brought ‘Paisley Panda’ home. h

“There’s a great sentence in the book that says s ‘it’s not a disability, it’s just a different ability’ and that just brought tears to my eyes, because Billie’s had lots of struggles, but she’s also had lots of amazing things come from it,” Bernadette said.

The family made the decision to self-publish the book soon after, with copies now available for sale online and a book launch to take place on Friday, May 5, at Mary Mckillop in Kirwan.