New Young Carers Books partnership! 

Increasing numbers of people working with young carers are familiar “The Late Crew” books by award-winning children’s novelist Rab Ferguson and also of the beautiful picture book "Young Carers in Bunnyland" by Ana Graça. Both sets of books are being increasingly widely being used by local young carers schemes to enhance conversations with the children they support and help raise awareness of their needs.

Rab and Ana have now decided to form the Young Carers Books partnership with help from the Young Carers Illustrations Project. There are so many millions of young carers around the world and yet there is not so much recognition and representation of them in children’s literature. For primary school aged young carers, there is even less - and the partnership is setting out to change this. The aims behind this are that:

• ‘Young carers will be excited to see themselves in a book! 

• Other young people will understand what it means to be a carer. 

• Some children will read it and realise that they are a carer, even if they didn't know before”.

  
  

Rab Ferguson’s.excellent “Late Crew” books are aimed at 8 to 12 year olds and, as well as being great fun, these help raise awareness of young carers and their needs. You can find out more about The Late Crew here: https://www.thelatecrew.co.uk/

“Young Carers in Bunnyland” is a beautifully illustrated picture book by Ana Graça. This is aimed at 4 to 8 year olds and comes with an accompanying workbook “About Me” and young carer bunny stickers. These are free and published and promoted by the Young Carers Illustrations Project, which can also provide access to free artwork for you in local publicity. https://www.youngcarersillustrations.com/

We have heard back from several areas where both sets of books are being used and we are told that these are thought to be entirely complementary.

A first step for Young Carers Books is creating a free simple comic which features characters from both books, which can be used as a way of introducing the books and characters, as well as sharing a couple of facts about young carers. This comic actually establishes that "Young Carers in Bunnyland" is also set in Morfield like The Late Crew. Just like towns across the country, Morfield is full of young carers! 

Later this year we are hoping that there will a new “Bunnyland” book where Honey and Billy will again be turned into bunnies by the magic fairy! This will be followed

by another exciting adventure in “The Late Crew” series, when intrepid young carers from Morfield again do battle with space aliens!

Rab and Ana are also planning to work with others to create a free online CPD resource for Primary School Teachers and others working with young carers that will highlight the benefits of using books representing young carer characters. 

So …... Watch the stars, and the rabbit burrows; as exciting things are afoot !