The Book of Silly Rhymes and reluctant readers

I wanted to write The Book of Silly Rhymes for all children to enjoy and I especially wanted to include the reluctant readers.

I wanted to put laughter back into reading time to encourage children that reading can be fun and so they don’t see it as a chore. When you have a reluctant reader it can be hard to get them to sit down to read and especially hard to try and get them to stay focused through a whole book.

This is where The Book of Silly Rhymes comes in!

The rhymes themselves have been written in a funny, silly and sometimes a little bit rude way to get children laughing and keep them engaged. The book is full of individual short rhymes so children who struggle with reading long stories can easily dip in and out of the book and choose what pages they want to read. Every rhyme has a fun illustration drawn by the very talented Louise Rarity to add to the laughter and fun of the book.

The book can be read in any order and having smaller snippets to read can help a child that finds it hard to concentrate and focus on bigger story books.

My publisher Blue Falcon Publishing also found a special font called the Open Dyslexia font which is used throughout the book. This font is specialised to help children with dyslexia read the words. Every character in this font is uniquely shaped to help eliminate the common reading errors of dyslexia. The capital letters and punctuation marks are bold to emphasize breaks and all the letters have clear spacing between them making them clearer to read.

Why did I write a book for Reluctant Readers?

I wanted to write a book for reluctant readers because quite simply I was one. I struggled through school and disliked reading and found reading hard going. It wasn’t until in later life when I was in college that I was diagnosed with dyslexia.

If you want to find out more about this take a look at my post being a writer with dyslexia to find out more.

Although I didn’t like reading I do remember my favourite book when I was young and it was a limerick book. Even though it was years ago when I had this book I can still to this day remember my favourite limerick from it –

There once was a girl called flow,

Who wanted her knickers to show,

She wore a shirt,

As short as a skirt

And kept on bending down low’

Unfortunately, I do not know who the Author is to credit this limerick to them. If anyone does know please do comment the author below. Whoever did write it though I want to say thank you as this rhyme has inspired me more than you know.

This limerick has stuck with me my all my life and with ‘The Book of Silly Rhymes,’ I wanted to give children who are struggling, the experience of reading that I had from that book. I hope for the children that find reading difficult my book can give them the stepping stones in learning to love reading.

One of my favourite hobbies now is to read, I do it every evening before going to bed and I wouldn’t be where I am today without finding my love of reading. It is a very important skill to have and if children can find their love for reading at a young age it can improve their prospects for later life.

Where to buy The Book of Silly Rhymes

The Book of Silly Rhymes is available in my shop or you can order through Amazon, Blue Falcon Publishing and it has even made it across the world and is available through Target in America

Edit – The Book of Silly Rhymes has recently won silver in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards you can find out about it in my post The Book of Silly Rhymes is a Winner!

Why not also take a look at my post on ‘My journey to getting my book published‘.