Book’s message of inclusivity
Maidenhead: Teacher publishes first story for children
An infant school teacher in Maidenhead is hoping to spark youngsters’ imaginations and spread a message of inclusivity irrespective of differences with her first children’s book.
Rhian Lynette Roberts, 30, is a year one teacher at Furze Platt Infant’s School and started writing her new book Goose and Bear during lockdown when she was teaching remotely.
The book, for three to seven-year-olds, was illustrated by Lee Dixon and published by Austin Macauley Publishers on Friday, March 31.
It focuses on the themes of making friends, gaining the confidence to talk to others and sharing differences with one another and being friends.
Rhian said: “It’s supposed to be quite a heart-warming story to spark children’s imagination and also teach them some really important life lessons and morals.
“It’s about a bear who is struggling himself with feeling shy and seeing his differences as negatives and
a little goose comes along into his life and shows him all these things that are different about him are actually wonderful and really important and useful and helps him to make friends.”
The Maidenhead resident, revealed she read the story to her class before it was published.
“They all said it was amazing, that they loved it. They understood the moral, they said bear was shy and he needed help making friends.”
Rhian said her message of inclusivity is important as she herself has both dyspraxia and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
She said: “Being included has always been a challenge in my life.
“I remember trying to play tennis as a teenager and I couldn’t hit the ball but my friends still played with me anyway.
“So, I’ve always been very lucky to have friends around me who have always included me despite my differences.”
Rhian explained bear is based on her partner Rob Connell, whom she lovingly calls bear, and he calls her goose. And the part in the book stating ‘you carry the logs and I’ll get the twigs’ is their relationship summed up.
She said: “He always helps me with the things that I can’t do or that I can’t do very well, but then I’ve always got jobs and things that I can do and things that I help him with.”
The school teacher added it was a ‘surreal’ feeling to see her first book published.
She is already hatching plans for a potential sequel to Goose and Bear while a new concept about dinosaurs is also a possibility.
The book can be purchased from on Amazon and Waterstones or from Austin Macauley Publishers at: www.austinmacauley.com/author/lynetterhian