So.... I've written some children's books! Hopefully there will be more to come too. 

‘The Adventures of Stan the Man’ began as bedtime stories for my grandson, Stanley when he was little. Each time Stanley came to sleep over, I made up a new story - sometimes with Stanley’s help.

These stories were about a little boy (obviously called Stanley), who did ordinary things, but when he shouted out, “Look at Me”, Stanley became ‘Stan the Man’ and found himself transported to another place/time where he had an adventure. He always came back home safely however, usually having met someone or learnt something new. In some stories, his little sister, Isla (Smila) and his even smaller cousin, Martha (Larfa) went with him on the adventures too.

The Stan the Man stories were in my head, so I made a note of the main theme of each story and then during COVID Lockdown in 2020, I started to write the stories in rhyme and ended up illustrating them too in a style which aspiring young artists will hopefully find easy to copy, (something I often tried to do as a child).

I began by using pencil crayons, which took a long time to do, so I began to search for a simple illustrators' programme to help. I discovered a simple app for Ipad called Procreate. It turned out to be just what I needed. 

As a child I loved the Rupert Bear stories in the Daily Express annuals of the 1960s and most of my rhyming poetry since, has usually taken the form of rhyming couplets which were a feature of these stories. I also loved the way Rupert went off for magical adventures in different places. I think that both of these Rupert Bear connections probably had an influence on the creation of the Stan the Man adventures. 

So my first story, ‘Stan the Man and the Big Purple Slide’ is now available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

I hope you and your children or grandchildren will enjoy reading it. 

Buy a copy of Stan the Man and the Big Purple Slide here

The second story, ‘Stan the Man and the Giant Sloth’ is now available on Amazon too. My grandson loves Sloths and his school video project about them led to the writing of this story.  Click here to buy the book at a reduced price.

The third story, ’Stan the Man and the Christmas Adventure’ finds Stanley, sister Isla and cousin Martha on The Island at their Uncle’s farm.

Whilst there, they have an adventure in which they go back in time to look in on the very first Christmas. This book is now available on Amazon as well. 

The 'Stan the Man and the Flying Bed' adventure happens when Stanley is staying with his grandparents.

His grandpa has built him a bed that looks like a plane and when Stanley shouts, 'Look at Me!', both Stan and the bed shrink and the bed becomes a real little plane with Stan inside it! He then flies off on an adventure to the seaside.

'Stan the Man and the Seaside Adventure' is story number five.

In this adventure, Stanley and Isla go on holiday at the seaside with cousin Martha's family.

They build a sandcastle and end up having an adventure inside the castle!

Buy 'Stan the Man and the Seaside Adventure' here.

Story number six is 'Stanthe Man and the Underwater Adventure' 

Stanley and his dad go camping with some friends, and on a bike ride by the river, Stanley falls in. He becomes Stan theMan and has an adventure under the water.