Homeschooled 11-year-old from Fernwood publishes book about climate change

After a lot of hard-work and determination, an 11-year-old has published her first book which focuses on climate change.

Georgia Chester, of Fernwood, started drafting the book and putting ideas together at the age of nine, and two years later, she has finally published the book.

The book — The Dragolves Quest — which focuses on empowerment, positivity, friendships and climate change, has grown from book readings in gardens to being on sale with online shopping giant Amazon.

It follows the story of four female mythical characters, which represent the four elements — fire, earth, air, and water.

The story follows each of the characters on a seven-day quest because God made the earth in seven days.

Each task involves collecting a key to portals taking the character into a parallel world that will lead to stopping climate change.

The book teaches about determination to succeed, hope and belief in coming together to take action for an important collective purpose and most of all that dyslexia is not a barrier to success, as Georgia herself is dyslexic.

The six-chapter book was written over the space of a year with the aid of Georgia’s home tutor Deb Wilson, who helped bring out the youngster’s creativity, organise her ideas, and structure the story.

Deb said: “It is an amazing achievement and I feel very privileged to have been part of the process and her journey. She is an inspiration for other children who have a desire to write and share their story with the world too.”

Georgia, who is home-schooled and has dyslexia, added: “I am really happy and proud of myself but also relieved it's now published.

“I may want to write more books in the future but have no clear plans at the moment. I just want to enjoy the process of writing and making up stories.”

After the book was completed last year, Georgia and Deb set out to find sponsors to cover the book illustrations and publication, and created a JustGiving page with a £500 target.

Deb Wilson started organising book readings in her garden for a selected audience, and from there, family friend Claire Clements, co-founder and director of Positively Empowered Kidstook, the idea to Newark Business Club at the YMCA and gained sponsorship from Gusto Homes, who donated £300.

PawPrint Tune also made a donation, which helped Georgia reach a total of £475 on her JustGiving page.

Clare’s help connected them to illustrator Debra Webster, who was interested in Georgia's story and her personal journey and created the illustrations with a 50% reduced fee.

They were then able to self-publish Dragolf on Amazon, where the book is now on sale for £14.99.

They are now working to produce merchandise to go with the book and have started with book bags, which they made during Georgia’s lessons using a sewing machine.

Deb believes that home-schools, or one-to-one tuition, allow a child time and freedom to explore their inner creativity and ideas.

“There are no curriculum constraints so this allows the child to be their authentic self, focus on what they want to do and work in a way that appeals to them.

“Much of our initial work was done via artwork to get a real feel for the characters Georgia was developing and the environments in which they lived.

“As a child with dyslexia, Georgia has been able to verbalise her story, with me acting as a scribe, rather than feeling she needed to be able to write all the words herself, spell them all accurately and know all the rules of basic punctuation.

“She has proved that a book can be 'written' through verbalisation.”

Georgia’s mum, Annette Chester, said that she was “impressed and proud” of how imaginative and creative Georgia’s mind is, and how confidently she is able to articulate her thoughts and ideas within her storytelling and in communicating with her sponsors about her book.

She said: “I'm proud of both her storytelling and the empowering nature of the subject matter, how much she has learned and grown throughout the whole process of getting to the point of publication.

“As her parents, we believe it is astonishingly well-written and beautifully illustrated. When you see it, it is impossible to not appreciate the hard work that has gone into getting the book to the point of being publishable.”

In the future, Georgia said she would like to work in some sort of environmental and animal conservation or protection.