A Welsh mum has written a book to encourage children to wear glasses after being inspired by her own family. Katy Tainton, 37, from Skewen, felt the need to write her first book - The Amazing Fairy Glasses - after her eldest daughter Belle was diagnosed with long-sightedness at the age of two.
After many appointments she was told her daughter had intermittent esotropia, which is a type of strabismus that causes the eye to turn inward. Belle was given glasses and was told to wear them all the time, but Katy found it a struggle to convince Belle to wear them. Belle was so little at the time that she couldn’t understand what they were for, and would always protest against wearing them and pull them off.
The mother-of-three looked for books she could read to Belle to show her how her glasses could help her, but she quickly discovered there were few books on the topic. Then Belle’s younger brother, Leo, received the same diagnosis three years later and like his sister didn't want to wear glasses.
Katy decided she wanted to write her own book, but it wasn't until lockdown that she had the time. Work for the mum suddenly halted when lockdown hit in March 2020, as she's a wedding photographer.
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Katy said: "All the weddings were off. 2020 was a year of no work. I started to learn how to do Photoshop. I would use pictures of children and make them fantastical images. Some of the images I did were my children as fairies. They were really popular and I sold them around Christmas time. Going into 2021 I actually saw on TikTok that you could publish your own book so I looked into it."
It was at this point the writing started, and Katy worked with an illustrator to help make her idea become a reality. The characters of the story are based on Katy’s three children - Penelope, two, Leo, four, and Belle, who is now seven. The story centres around a tiny fairy called Belle who has trouble flying through the forest because she keeps bumping into things. She then goes to visit her wise Granny who uses magic to make Belle a pair of glasses.
After putting on her glasses, Belle discovers she is able to fly faster than before because she no longer bumps into things. Her new glasses allow her to see a beauty in the world that she was never able to see before.
Katy said: "I'm not a trained writer, and I haven't got any qualifications in English, but I looked into rhythms and rhymes. It's really important for them to understand why they wear glasses. As a two-year-old, they just didn't understand. They wouldn't see the benefit of them."
The passionate mum really wanted to focus on the positive aspects of wearing glasses - the aim is to show little ones what they can do when they wear glasses, instead of focusing on how they look or what other people think. Since releasing the book in October, Katy said the response has been really good. Katy has also received praise from opticians who have purchased the book for their young patients.
When asked what the response has been like, Katy said: "Really good. We had some children dress up as Belle for World Book Day, so that was great. Belle is the fairy and they dressed up and put glasses on. My daughter and my son both took the book to school, and the school thought it was great.
"The kids were saying to Belle 'now I understand why you wear glasses - now I can see why you wear them'. She had never had any negativity, but she had questions about it. There was a curiosity. Some kids have said 'I wish I had cool glasses'."
The Amazing Fairy Glasses is available to purchase worldwide on Amazon. Katy is now working on her next book that will feature a dinosaur who finds out he needs glasses. The Special Dinosaur Glasses will show Harry the dinosaur visiting the opticians and having a sight test, and will be published later this year. You can keep up to date with more Neath Port Talbot stories by subscribing to our daily newsletter here.
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