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I’m delighted to share this posting by Tracey West, a fellow author from my publishing company, Magic Oxygen.
It’s always wonderful to announce the birth of a new book, but this one is exceptionally close to my heart.
I have just had the most demanding but incredibly rewarding task of creating a new book, 365 Silly Jokes for Kids.
Much of the raw written material for it was amassed at the funeral of Martha Mickshik, a sweet little dot who sadly lost her brave battle for life at the tender age of 7 in 2006.
Martha had a brain tumour and many associated illnesses and as a result, spent countless weeks in hospital while she endured surgery and treatment of one kind or another.
Her mother, Maggie, was by her side at all times and she also had another young child and a house to try and run; I can only imagine this chaotic period must have brought the entire family to their knees at times.
They got through it somehow and when Martha finally passed away, Maggie set up the charity Martha Care, with a vision to raise enough money to fund a Support Worker to be installed at the Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital. Their role would be to offer one to one support to the parents of terminally ill, very sick and injured children, helping them with everything from enormous requests to the minutiae of everyday living, the stuff that the nursing staff are simply not geared up to assist with.
A handful of years and some dedicated fundraising later, this dream has been turned into a reality and an incredible lady called Bobby Humphries now does precisely that in the Bristol Royal.
To date, she has assisted over 160 families with countless cries for help and sales from this joke book will help ensure her contract is renewed and the charity can continue to provide this lifeline of support to parents in their desperate hours of need.
Martha was a relentless joke teller, I think perhaps it was her way of coping with the pressures and pain of everyday life. For me, creating 365 Silly Jokes for Kids to help remember her and to continue funding the Martha Care Support Worker, was the most bitter-sweet joy of a job to undertake.
I collated and indexed the jokes, tidied them up, edited them, extended many and graphically laid each of them out on the pages of an A5 book with frames, funky borders and doodles drawn by her friend. Simon West tapped into his inner child too and created additional graphics and fillers to further illustrate the jokes and decorate the space.
Our efforts were reinforced when illustrator Jo Stroud jumped on-board and contributed the most incredible Monty Python style front and back cover (which incidentally we’d decided upon before the Python’s announced their tour – what timing eh)…
Between the three of us, I think we willingly, voluntarily contributed around 200 hours and as I sit with the resulting paperback in my hand, I couldn’t be more proud of our collaboration.
What we need now however, is sales!
If you would like to stock the book or post details about it on your website, please get in touch and we’ll help in any way we can.
Maggie and her team thank you from the bottom of their hearts for anything you can do to assist with the marketing of a lifeline for a lifeline.
Proudly,
Tracey West
See www.TraceyWest.co.uk to subscribe to her blog