‘Swallow Me, NOW!’ is the story of Samantha Phillips, a ten year old kid in grade 5 who relocates back to Australia after spending three years in Nepal. On her first day she meets Felicity, the most popular girl at Green Oaks Primary School, who bullies her, first with exclusion, and then escalating to teasing. The story tells the tale of how Sam overcomes the bullies and builds her confidence to find some new friends.

‘Swallow Me, NOW!’ was written during the 2013 Chapter Book Challenge, and draws on my own experiences as a missionary kid adjusting back to life in Australia in the 1980s. I found it very hard to make friends and was bullied, mostly due to differences in experiences, but also due to a lack of confidence.

My younger son partly inspired the ending to ‘Swallow Me, NOW!’ after one incident. The teacher was reading a story about bullying where the bully and victim became best friends at the end of the book. He told me that he just wanted the bully to stop and that he didn’t want to be friends. Looking in to other stories that were available, I found similar endings, or that the bully got in trouble and changed their ways.

The other aspect I noticed was that many stories were trying to get children to solve the issue of bullying by themselves. With my story, I want to encourage children to tell someone if they or someone they know, are being bullied. They may be able to come up with a solution, however they should do this with the support of the adults around them.

My goal with this book is to give children an understanding of bullying as well as encouraging them to speak up if it’s happening to them or someone they know.

Swallow Me, NOW! will be published through Lilly Pilly Press - http://www.lillypillypress.com/  & www.facebook.com/LillyPillyPress.


Funds will be used for

- editing,
- Design and format
- cover character concept of Sam by Cecilia Clark - http://ceciliaaclark.blogspot.com.au/
- cover design by Lilly Pilly Press
- Chapter illustrations
- printing costs
- production of various rewards and shipping
- and Pozible fees.

If the target amount is exceeded, the money will go toward printing additional copies of the book as well as promotion. There is also the possibility of recording and audio book version of ‘Swallow Me, NOW!’.

This book is almost complete and we are aiming for an October 2014 launch. The biggest challenge is not reaching my funding goals to get this book published.

The other challenge is time. While we are well on the way to reaching our publishing date, there could be unforseen hiccups along the way.