Kia ora
This last Christmas (2019) Elodie, the 10 year old daughter of a close friend, had a sleep over at our place. In the middle of the night she had a terrible anxiety attack and her Mum later confirmed that they had been going on for a while.
A couple of days later I made, with text and simple Illustrations, a little book to help her cope.
Over the years I’ve had a run in with anxiety that lead on to panic attacks. I got help – from a breathing instructor at a martial arts club and the team at Anxiety NZ. It was hard seeing a child go through what I thought was the exclusive ordeal of adults – with all the stress of work and family life thrust upon them. Sadly it seems children are as vulnerable to this condition as adults and the numbers suggest that it’s getting worse. The original hand drawn book has helped Elodie cope already, she keeps it under her pillow.
The ‘dot’ character in DOT comes from an old acquaintance of mine that had a small pink piece of paper stuck to the top of her computer monitor – like the little camera lens you see on modern laptops, she told me that when she felt a panic attack coming on, she would concentrate on that little pink dot and breathe deeply. It seemed to work for her and subsequently worked for me also. DOT is an amalgamation of those ideas and experiences.
DOT is designed to distract and engage the reader, directing them to breathe deeply while giving them something to focus on that’s not on a tablet, a smartphone or the worlds many problems. My partner Tamara felt the book needed to reach a wider audience so Penguin Books was brought on board and the entire project was realised and sent to print over level 3 and 4 of lockdown in early 2020.
Penguin Random House is donating $1 from the sale of each book to Anxiety NZ.
I hope you enjoy reading DOT – maybe you know someone who might benefit from reading it too.
If you would like a signed copy then send me an email and we’ll see if we can work something out.
Otherwise you can buy your copy of DOT here
Nga mihi nui