From Lockdown Project to Publishing Success!
The Netherhall School are so proud of Year 9 pupil, Molly Bennett, who has spent the last six months working on her first children’s book. ‘Finn and the Five Flies’ which is illustrated by her Mum, Emma Bennett, and was published by Biddles Books in February 2021.
Molly says that the inspiration for the book came from a rather scruffy and smelly farm dog that she and her Mum spotted while on a family holiday. When they returned home the memory of this dog gradually transformed into the shape of Finn, a muddy farm dog who is plagued by five flies that follow him from page to page. As the story progresses, Finn learns a bit of a lesson and just maybe the five flies aren’t as annoying as he originally thought…!
The book, aimed at young readers, is written in rhyme which Molly says wasn’t her original intention – and was really tricky to achieve! – but she decided on this approach to “make it more fun” for children to read or be read to. Another decision that Molly made was to incorporate the five flies on each page of the book so that young readers could enjoy looking out for and counting them.
Although Emma, Molly’s Mum, a collage artist, was chiefly responsible for the art work in the book, Molly had lots of input too and art is something that she can’t wait to study for GCSE next year. Molly says that working on the book was a really lovely thing for her and her Mum to do together over the last 6 months or so of national lockdown. What initially started as a fun way to pass the time has grown into a big project with ‘Bella and the Bees’ soon to join Finn in the bookshops and others in the series on the way.
We’re sure that lots of young readers will love finding out about Finn and can’t wait to see how Molly’s career as a writer develops.
