A Kendal mother is inspiring other parents to have fun days out with their young children in Cumbria, through a beautiful picture book that encapsulates the personal joy this has brought her.
Bonnie Quantz has written the book, ‘Happy Days Out in the Lake District’ having spent many such days enjoying simple pleasures, or visiting some of the county’s attractions, with her three-year-old daughter.
‘Happy Days Out in the Lake District’ references 17 different places in which parents and grandparents can create indelible memories with their pre-school children and grandchildren.
Locations and activities include feeding ducks at Coniston Water, splashing in puddles at Tarn Hows, seeing shiny steam engines at Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, looking at mountains from an Ullswater Steamer and running around the stones at Castlerigg.
The illustrations encourage children to recall their day out when back at home, using many different visual prompts to interact and talk about their experience.
This helps with verbal development and reading, whilst finding Arbie the Owl, hidden somewhere within every scene, assists their observational skills.
‘Happy Days Out in the Lake District’ is just the first of a series of such books that Bonnie plans to write, working alongside Piers.
Bonnie says: “My days out with my daughter in Cumbria created special memories that I soon realised we needed to preserve in some way, which is how the idea for the book emerged.
"The books are a perfect way for families to remember their own days out in the Lakes, whether they have visited one of the attractions or enjoyed a picnic by a lake, but as well as being a keepsake, are also a lovely gift purchase.”
Bonnie is marketing the books in Cumbria, arranging book signings and also focusing on the drive-time area from which visitors from outside the county frequently come.
In this way, she hopes to help boost the Cumbrian economy after its setback with the December floods, by encouraging families to visit.
She says: “The books can be sold not just by visitor attractions and bookshops, but also hotels and guesthouses that wish to encourage families to keep visiting, or realise how much there is to explore, if they keep returning.
Bonnie’s book also has a charitable element to it.
Ten per cent of the money generated by sales of both the paperback and board forms of the book will be donated to CHICKS – a charity that provides disadvantaged children, from across the UK and from a variety of backgrounds, with respite breaks.
Bonnie’s next project with Piers is a colouring book that sits alongside the board book and which allows the child to colour in people, animals and objects that they can see in the book’s illustrations.
This encourages them to use the same colours as in the book and assists with creativity and artistic development.