Marie Isaac (previously Marie Vedat) had her first children’s book published by Olympia Publishers in London this week.
The picture book – Big Dog and Brown Duck – is aimed at 3–8-year-olds, although Marie hopes it will strike a chord with older children and adults who read to younger children. It is a simple tale of comeuppance which should spark conversations about behaviour, humility and kindness.
Marie was inspired to write in rhyme by Lynley Dodd’s Hairy Maclary books, which she read repeatedly to her three children when they were young. Big Dog and Brown Duck was written solely for Marie’s children in the early 2000s and sat on a laptop until she finally plucked up the courage to send it out to publishers last year. Marie’s friend from Lincoln – Hannah May – was tasked with bringing the characters from her imagination to paper and together they plotted to hide snails on each page for children to find.
Marie says: It’s hard to believe that this little story has actually made it to print after all these years. Thank you to Hannah for creating such beautiful illustrations, and to Olympia Publishers for believing the story was worth publishing. I hope that it brings a smile to the faces of those reading it and that it is a book that children want to read again and again.
Marie moved to Borgue in 1987 and was a student at Kirkcudbright Academy, where she gained Highers and Sixth Year Studies. She then studied Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow before going on to qualify as a proofreader and teacher of English as a foreign language. While she currently lives in Staffordshire, Marie maintains very strong connections with Dumfries and Galloway as her family still live in Wigtownshire and she owns a chalet at Carrick Shore.
Big Dog and Brown Duck can be ordered and purchased from www.olympiapublishers.com; www.waterstones.com; www.amazon.co.uk; www.barnesandnoble.com;
A portion of the royalties of this book will be donated to children’s cancer charities. Marie’s next book – Grumpfish – is already in the pipeline.
Marie can be contacted at [email protected]
