A children’s book about the history of the island has been published by Loaghtan Books.
‘A Young Manx History’ gives a whistlestop tour of all the important bits of Manx history – as well as some bits which are fascinating for all the wrong reasons.
Author Sara Goodwins, who runs Loaghtan Books publishing house with her husband George Hobbs, explained: ‘ The idea for “A Young Manx History” was suggested by one of the bookshops which stocks our other books.
‘We always encourage people to let us know if they think there’s a gap in the market - after all the bookshops know better than we do what customers are asking for - and they happened to mention that children’s books about the island were very scarce.
‘I thought: “Well, maybe we could do that”. That was about 18 months ago, and I’ve been slowly working out what the book might look like while getting on with other projects.’
The book features lots of cartoon illustrations, jokes, and a timeline along the bottom of each page to get the boring things like dates out of the way.
Sara said: ‘I wanted the book to be colourful and eye-catching because I thought that would appeal not only to children, but also to parents and guardians - and perhaps teachers.
Obviously therefore it needed to be illustrated. I always loved cartoons as a child (still do!), so thought that would be the best way to do it. It also meant that we could have some fun with quirky images, which is much more difficult if you’re using photographs.’
She said that while containing ‘real’ history, the book is intended to be light-hearted in an effort to emphasise that history isn’t boring.
‘Dates are important in history, of course, but we got them out of the way of the text by putting a timeline along the bottom of each page.’
It’s aimed at children but Sara says she hopes adults will also like it as being a very quick and easy introduction to Manx history.
‘Certainly my dad, who is 87, is enjoying reading the book, but he’s probably biased.’
Sara is now working on a revision of a book published about five years ago - another Manx History but aimed at adults called “A Brief History of the Isle of Man”.
‘I’ve not stopped thinking about Manx books for children though, and have got an idea for a couple more. I’m not saying what they are just yet in case the ideas don’t work!’
‘A Young Manx History’ costs £8.95 and is available from bookshops across the island.
