Contributor

#thatladywithfoxears

author and founder of Clever Fox Press

I was a political refugee from former Soviet Union and left Russia 25 years ago. I have Master’s degree in psychology. I also qualified as a teacher of English as a foreign language for children. At the end of 2015 when media was saturated with devastating stories about the fates of Syrian refugees, especially children refugees, I found myself going back to the memories I had of my family leaving Russia and becoming refugees in the West. I vividly remembered the last months and weeks before my family left the country and the trials and challenges that we, then children, faced. One of the hardest memories to go back to was about leaving our pet dog Emma behind as we, refugees, were not allowed to take any pets with us on the journey. The other hardship for us children was to decide which toys and books and family pictures we could take with us as the amount of luggage we could carry was also limited. I thought that now was a very good time to share mine and my brother’s story with other children to help them relate to the hardships, both physical and emotional, of children fleeing war and torture. And that is how my first children’s book came about. It was called ‘Goodbye, Emma’ and told the story of a boy refugee who was forced to leave behind his pet when his family fled the country. This book is of course based on a true story as my brother and I were these children. The proceeds from sale of 'Goodbye, Emma' as well as my other books are being donated to charities dedicated to helping children refugees. The first hundred copies of the book were shipped to refugee camps in Greece and Iraq and to the charities which are working with children refugees in England, Canada, Germany and Turkey. After 'Goodbye, Emma' came out I felt that I had too many stories locked away in my head and these stories had to somehow reach more children. I decided to connect with artists and illustrators in third world countries, especially the countries troubled by wars and economic problems, to encourage those artists to contribute and to share their stories. I have since written and produced 18 more books with a few more projects on the way. I have a wonderful team of freelance artists from Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Spain, Latvia and India. My motto is to write up to children, not down, as they are much more perceptive and intelligent than we give them credit for. Thus, I do not break down my books by age group as I believe such classification is obsolete. My books are targeting children of all ages including their parents and grandparents. I have also noticed drastic decline of poetry for children. The odd rhyme is there but real poetry has disappeared from book shelves altogether. So my other goal is to re-introduce poetry in the world of rhyme and non-rhyme which the business of children’s books has become. I am a big fan of folk tales and fairytales. These hold a world of wisdom passed down from one generation to the next and should never be forgotten but retold to our children as well as to our grandchildren. So once upon a time there was... #thatladywithfoxears who loves to tell stories...