These flash cards play an important role in many non-verbal children’s lives and so, while the inclusion might seem like a small detail, it plays an important part of helping children feel they are being included. It also provides an insight for others into the realities of someone else’s life. While drawing on her own experience, Rose is keen to stress the importance of authentic voices and points to the work of Inclusive Minds (see Pen&inc. Issue two pp. 9-11). Inclusive Minds was founded to help more people share their experiences with authors and illustrators, to help ensure authentic voices are part of the story. Rose works with the organisation herself, and says: “I had been following inclusive minds on social media for a while and responded when they did a call out for new ambassadors. I really enjoy being involved with them, they are a really fantastic and truly caring organisation. So far, I have done a bit of writing for them (my article for SEN magazine on inclusive books) and taken part in the London Book Fair panel discussion on diversity in children’s publishing.
“Without authentic voices in accessible spaces, we lose an incredibly valuable resource. Stories provide an opportunity to be totally absorbed in somebody else’s world from the comfort of your own, and so children and people of all ages need inclusive and diverse stories to learn how
know that I am autistic myself, and people on a personal level seem to be a lot more understanding of autism than before.”
Rose feels that while there is a growing awareness amongst individual of autism, there is still a long way to go in wider society. Reflecting realties is one way of moving towards a more understanding society.
to empathise and relate to each other in healthy ways.”
The steps that are being taken now to make sure those voices have a place in the creative process are helping to mark out a path for positive change. Rose adds: “I have been really heartened recently by some of the conversations I have been having around autism (not just on social media). I have all sorts of conversations with all sorts of people, not all of whom
Rose says: “Where there is greater need for change, is more in the way our society operates, I realise this is incredibly vague, and it is not perhaps all down to representation and inclusion, but all too often autistic people are left out of conversations. I truly believe that a better world for autistic people would be a better world for everyone.”
Rose says that while her own books are grounded in real experience, she has embraced fantasy by drawing inspiration from some of her favourite childhood books. She says: “I loved all of Maurice Sendak’s books growing up, all of his children characters were quite wild and messy, which was certainly the reality in our house. I also loved the original Dr Dolittle books, because I thought that it was marvellous that this man could talk to animals, I had a bit of an obsession with talking animals, which perhaps makes sense, considering the book I have written. I hope that my books resonate with children and families as an authentic depiction of neurodiversity family life, and that it allows children to embrace their differences and feel empowered.” PEN&INC.
Rose is working on her next book, Loud, which she describes as “a bit different to my previous books, more characters, more colours, even a musical number! It’s definitely... Loud.”
l
https://roserobbins.co.uk/ 16 PEN&INC. Spring-Summer 2020
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