Thornbury resident impressed by pinecone pens kids’s ebook
Combining her ardour for yoga, outdoor, and psychological well being wellness, Kelly Williams has written The Resilient Pinecone
Through the COVID-19-related lockdowns, Kelly Williams discovered a logo of resilience within the type of a pinecone rising on a pine tree in her yard.
Now a retired educator, Williams has taken the teachings she discovered from the pinecone mixed with Chakra Yoga and written them right into a story for kids.
“After we had been taking time outdoors we’d discover the pinecone that withstood many, many storms,” stated Williams. “It was form of cool to see that one pinecone form of held on for greater than two years. And it grew to become symbolic for me.”
Referred to as The Resilient Pinecone, Williams’ first kids’s ebook went up on the market on-line Nov. 18 and her printed copies arrived on the finish of November.
“It was very thrilling … like Christmas,” stated The Blue Mountains resident. She moved into her Thornbury dwelling full-time after retiring from her 32-year profession in training. When she retired, she was a Halton Catholic District Faculty Board principal.
“I’m actually enthusiastic about wellness, psychological well being and wellness for kids, specifically, and that’s a part of the place the story got here from,” she stated. “Simply the significance of constructing resilience with kids.”
The story follows a baby named Ajna, who over a interval of two years spends time outdoors in nature and, whereas outdoors, Ajna asks inquiries to a pinecone.
Ajna has no specified gender within the ebook, and has neither masculine nor female clothes or look.
Williams wished the principle character to be relatable.
“I wished to have a personality that most individuals might see themselves in,” she stated.
The pinecone represents Mom Nature speaking to the kid and instilling knowledge, a narrator helps inform the story and set the scenes. The story additionally has Ajna exploring yoga poses and Chakra teachings, which is one other ardour for Williams.
“Ajna is shifting outdoors, and principally studying to be extra resilient, and recognizing that we are able to do exhausting issues,” stated Williams.
It’s a necessity she noticed all through her profession as a principal, seeing children in her workplace who had been struggling.
“I simply observed that the resilience isn’t at all times there,” stated Williams. “It actually does take a village of individuals to help kids to construct up resilience to have that bounce-back … I feel the worldwide pandemic simply made it more difficult.”
She stated isolating throughout the pandemic made her notice the significance of slowing down, and spending time outdoor.
She wrote the story during the last 12 months, and hung out working with an illustrator, Danielle Hartgers, who lives within the London space of Ontario.
As a result of she had written the ebook and had it illustrated, Williams went the self-publishing route and printed the ebook through Amazon.
She has concepts in her head to make the story a trilogy of books and is hoping to have the ability to get them into faculties, and to make use of her background as an educator to jot down lesson plans to accompany the tales.
Her imaginative and prescient can also be so as to add yoga apply to the lesson plans.
The ebook is at the moment accessible on-line by way of Williams’ web site at kellywilliams.love, or on Amazon.ca.
