Look, read, learn, have fun, repeat, it’s NaeBother
There’s a beautiful quote from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh where Piglet asks Pooh, “Pooh, how do you spell love?” And Pooh answers wisely, as he so often does, “You don’t spell love Piglet, you feel it.”
A love of reading
Literacy skills are tremendously important because they’re the key to learning and opportunity, as young people from all backgrounds set out in life. At NaeBother, we really do love what we do, and we aim to pass on a passion for stories to all our readers, young or old.
We have lots of fun creating our picture books for the Early Years, but we also design them to engage a joyous, child-like sense of fun in adults, so that the experience of reading aloud is entertaining, and encourages vital, healthy interactions between them and their own children.
Rhyme and colour
It has long been recognised – from traditional nursery rhymes to the awesome Julia Donaldson – that rhyming stories help children learn to read. They unconsciously copy words, mirror skills, gain confidence, and predict what comes next. Our rhyming picture books help tiny readers learn patterns in a story and building blocks of literacy in the simplest, most enjoyable way.
Our books are highly visual with vivid colours. They stand out on any shelf, and each tale is revealed as much through the detail in Maurice’s stunning digital illustrations as through Shirley’s verse. We create books that are full of fun and with enough interest to engage and delight little minds.
Fun in the classroom
Our involvement with learning doesn’t stop there. We have experience of delivering storytelling and story writing workshops in hundreds of Scottish primary schools and our stories and characters can be brought to life with puppets from the brilliant Sally Preseig from Mimics Productions (aka Bella from BBC’s Tweenies).
The first book in our latest series for schools will be available this year. ‘The Wee Brammers’ is a series of modern fairy stories that will deliver nurturing, curricular learning and plenty of classroom activities. The smallest members of society suffered huge setbacks lately, and ‘The Wee Brammers’ are designed to help them get back on track.
A little help from heroes
This month, we’re launching another amazing book too: ‘Captain Conker and the Dastardly Plan’, which has been created and published on behalf of Kilmarnock Football Club. It’s sure to be a big hit across generations and will help the club build on its fantastic community connections. Books like these help like-minded organisations connect with families, engage with schools and help children with their health and wellbeing.
Across generations
We’ll end with some wisdom from the great Roald Dahl, who said to be a children’s author you must, ‘think like an adult but write like a child’. At NaeBother, we certainly never want to grow up completely and we want our readers to feel our sense of fun, take delight in our books and rediscover their joy of reading, no matter if they’re eight or eighty years old.