Children's book concept

Quick intro: I'm going to first describe the characters and then the overall story before explaining my reasons for writing the book in the first place afterwards.

Gary – 5 years old. Brunette with green eyes. Self-conscious about his absent left arm and doesn’t like talking about it. Parents told him they lost his arm at the hospital and had to buy another one on the way back home. Reluctantly tells this story to Jimmy and Olivia after Jimmy discovers a photograph of the newborn Gary with both arms present.

Olivia – 6 years old. Brunette with blue eyes. Adventurous and loves football. Doesn’t trust the two boys to form and execute a plan so regularly installs herself as the leader. Possesses a stoma which she keeps secret from her friends but Gary’s plight inspires her to do a speech about it at school.

Josh – 5 years old. Black hair with brown eyes. Rash and quizzical. Older brother has a prosthetic foot so he is unfazed by Gary’s prosthetic arm. Gary’s story about losing his arm at the hospital spurs him to go to hospital to help Gary find arm and his brother’s foot.


Gary invites Olivia and Josh to play football in his back garden. When Gary’s parents invite them in for refreshments, Josh notices a picture of Gary as a newborn with both arms. Josh asks Gary why he has both arms in that photograph and Gary explains by means of his parent’s tale that Gary lost his arm at the hospital and couldn’t find it again so they had to buy a prosthetic one. Knowing that his older brother has a prosthetic foot, Josh suggests going to hospital to search for his brother’s missing foot and Gary’s missing arm. Olivia enlists herself as the leader as she knows how to get to hospital via an ambulance which regularly visits her neighbour’s house. As per Olivia’s instructions, Gary drops his arm inside the ambulance and the trio follow the paramedic as she reports the prosthetic limb to prosthetics department. The trio are spotted by a doctor who recognises Gary and asks them where their parents are, Gary tells the story about his arm to the doctor and asks for his real arm back. Realising the difficulty of the situation, the doctor invites the children into the office and phones their parents to come collect their children. Waiting for their parents to arrive, the doctor begins explaining to Gary that his arm had to be amputated after he was born. Gary begins to get upset when he realises he will never have his left arm again and confides in the doctor that he’s scared of being different. Josh and Olivia eavesdrop on this conversation and Josh tells Gary that growing up with older brother and his prosthetic foot meant he never thought that Gary was any different to anyone else at school. Josh then makes the breakthrough that people are scared by what they don’t understand and suggests that Gary and his brother should do an assembly at school to educate people on their prosthetics. In a bid to install Gary with more confidence, Olivia admits to having a stoma, something that only her family and the teachers at school previously knew. She thought she was lucky that she could hide what makes her different but Gary’s sadness makes her feel guilty about this and makes the breakthrough that being different isn’t something you should be embarrassed of as everyone is different in their own way, citing each of their different eye colours. When their parents arrive, Gary’s parents apologise to him for not being truthful about his arm and confess that they thought making up a story about his arm would help him cope with the situation more so than explaining the reality of it. The book ends with the assembly and finishes with an illustration of Gary playing football in his back garden with a lot more friends.

So the reason I'm making this book is because my niece celebrates her first birthday at the end of February and while I have a decent amount of free time at the moment I've set the challenge of writing, illustrating and binding a bespoke book for her in the 6 weeks I have leading up to her birthday. As you might have guessed, the character of Olivia is based on her, she was born premature and while she has multiple health deficiencies, the only one that is apparent is her stoma. Chances are her stoma will be closed up by the time she develops the ability to cognitively absorb a book being read to her but I had a very hard time trying to find a book about helping children come to terms with their stoma and on a grander scale most books created in an attempt to help children understand disabilities in general are done via animals by means of "if you can love a dog with three legs then what's to stop you from being friends with someone with three limbs?" which I think is a reductive method of installing that sentiment. I want to help normalise these conditions and in doing so I want to make sure that the book isn't obviously pandering to the cause (e.g. calling the book something like "GARY'S MISSING ARM") I want to incorporate the message in a way that doesn't make it adverse to the demographic of people who would be put off buying a book that appears only to be of assistance to those with a disabled child in their life. Does this make sense? It would only be apparent that Gary has a prosthetic arm when the reader is several pages into the story. I feel as though tunnelling a story into acceptance and understanding is anti-intuative to the goal of normalising discriminations. I guess the best way to put it is through ya boi Knuckles the Echidna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC4vIBZkRSk