How & Why I Write Children’s Books: Part One – Shine, a book about Self-Worth
by Brett J Cole
I began writing this to explain the intent and thought process behind the first illustrated children’s book I made called “Shine”, but I very quickly realised that in order to do so I also need to explain what art and writing means to me – especially as a Neurodivergent – because there’s a significant overlap in what inspired me to make what was my first children’s book.
So, firstly, I need to explain that I’d long had a love for writing and art since being a child, for as long as I could remember, in fact. Something that made so much more sense when I was recognised as being Autistic at the age of 46.
Art had long been the easiest and most cathartic means of capturing whatever I felt stirring within myself, often in a very raw sense where any art was driven by the emotions at play when what I felt internally needed to be let loose in a tangible sense.
Writing, however, was a very different outlet that I came to adore. Not just because it allowed me to make sense of my own inner thoughts but also helped me in making sense of others. This had a profound impact upon me as an Autistic when younger because people didn’t quite make sense to me. Many social cues didn’t quite make sense to me. But reading about people – be they fictional or otherwise – made sense when laid bare in words.
Writing offered a peek behind the curtains of what made people tick because there was the luxury of having a narrative that explained their motivations, their actions, their nuances, and many other aspects that in the real world made no sense to me as a Neurodivergent.
And so, from an early age I began writing as a means of making sense of the world, others, and myself. Even come my teens I would often say that I could “write people” much easier than I could “be one”.
And I wrote furiously. I wrote often. I wrote obsessively. So much so that I later realised it was actually more than just a passion, it was in fact something of an Autistic stim – a means of filtering a world that made no sense into words I could reason with and make peace with upon paper.
When I say it was something I was driven to do, I don’t say that lightly. At cafes, bars, weddings, on buses, trains and trams… I was never without a notebook and pen to jot down all that sat in my head to make sense of a world I never quite felt at home in. The world made sense if I poured it through a funnel of prose, song lyrics and stories. From the age of seven all the way into my late thirties.
I was what I would often describe as “chronically arty” well before understanding how closely this tied in with my Neurodivergence. Until a funny thing happened on the way to the forum (to paraphrase that classic film).
In 2013 I decided to become an early childhood educator and my entire world changed for many, many reasons, most notably being that for once in my adult life I found a role and occupation that made sense to me, not just as a means of income but also as something that just fit. It would become an island of stability for 12 years whereas any other job or studies I’d ever attempted were short-lived aspirations that inevitably went up in the chaotic flames of what I’d later learn was Autistic Burnout.
Teaching children was also an enormous factor in realising I was Autistic because I came to notice that many of the challenges Neurodivergent children might face were ones that I’d long struggled with myself without understanding why. I was often able to help those children with the autonomy and respect they deserve because I’d been making similar accommodations for myself.
The curious thing about teaching, in regard to that burning drive I’d long had to “create”, was that across those 12 years of teaching that constant need to make sense of the world and myself through writing and art waned. Not because the passion or need for such was no longer there, but because that creative side of myself was now channelled into every interaction I’d have with the children I taught. Teaching, in itself, was a form of art.
Which brings me to how, why and when I made my first children’s book. And why I’ve since made others.
In 2022, having resigned as an educator for the council, I was in the midst of seeking employment elsewhere, which left me with a two-month gap. And a long two months it was! Towards the end, I realised that I needed to do something, make something, write something – anything to keep myself busy as I felt the approach of depression, away from a role and world that grounded me. So, again feeling that need to make sense of my world as I once had, I was idly drawing a sketch of a silhouetted figure with a light shining within them when I suddenly realised that what I was missing most about teaching was the interactions.
Aside from my own self-worth that teaching brought me, I dearly missed the conversations I’d have with children that would hopefully let them know of their own worth. Because that, to me, was very much at the core of being an early childhood educator… teaching children to value themselves, to know that they’re seen and heard. Teaching them to simply know, feel and believe that they’re important just for the fact that they’re… here.
So, from that one simple sketch, an idea emerged of making a children’s book that was less of a story and more of a conversation. A conversation that simply said to children, “you matter”.
Given that the sketch which inspired the book was a figure with an inner light, I knew straight away that I wanted to call the book “Shine” and I began writing it with the opening words of “You have a light inside you… Everyone does.”
What followed was… a conversation, one that discusses how a person’s self-worth is there from the very beginning, simply by just “being”, no matter who you are, how you look, or whatever your age may be.
It also became a book that explains empathy in that as much as you might have your own light, your actions can also affect the light others might have.I later realised that this book – that conversation – it was everything that I hoped it might be when I’d soon find that while children wanted to hear it, adults did as well with many buying it for themselves as much as for their children.
That mattered to me, because children are just adults at the start of their journey, and adults are just children farther along journeys their own.
So, there it is… a rather big explanation of how a small book came to be. Not so much a story, but more of a conversation, one that didn’t talk “at” children but rather “with” them.
It was an approach that very much influenced the following books I’d make. I’ll explain why that approach is important to me when I next explain my second book, one that also proved to be rather small but tackled a big, important subject, that being… death.
(I promise that conversation won’t be as long as this now that we’ve gotten the whole Autistic Writer thing out the way – this was long because Autistic Writer)
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