Northampton grandad uses lockdown to achieve long standing ambition of writing children’s book

A Northampton grandad spent lockdown working to achieve a long standing ambition of his to write and publish a fiction book.

Roger Chapman from Brixworth works in fostering and wrote a book in 2009 for social workers, but has always wanted to ‘do something creative’.

The 65-year-old became a grandad in 2019 to Freddie, which he says ‘spurred’ him on to think about writing a children’s book.

Now he has published ‘Goodnight Freddie’ - a fictional book suitable for two to five year-olds, about a boy who dreams about animals that get bigger every night.

Roger said: “As my grandson, Freddie, grows up, I love the imagination he has and how he lets you in on his imagination.

“I wanted to get some of that into a book as well.

“While I was writing the book, my ideas normally came to me in the middle of the night and I would have to get up and write it down else I would forget it the next day.

“The book has animals that get bigger and bigger during every dream and the book helps to explain dreams to children and how they are different from reality.

“I wanted to write a simple bedtime story, but if it helps to explain something to children, that’s a bonus.”

The book is illustrated by Amanda Stretch - a family friend of Roger’s daughter-in-law, who the author says was amazing to work with and very talented.

So far, ‘Goodnight Freddie’, published by Austin Macauley, has been bought across the globe in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, American, Spain and more.

Roger was also invited to take part in a book signing event at The Olive Branch Community Café in Brixworth last week, where he read his story to a group of parents and children and sold around 20 copies to families.

Roger added: “It was lovely to read my story aloud to the children and I was very pleased with how many books were sold to parents, grandparents and great grandparents alike.

“My grandson Freddie came along to help and, as you can see in the picture, he brought along his own copy to be signed.”

‘Goodnight Freddie’ is available on Amazon and from other book retailers.