Penny Clarke and Elizabeth Szczypka – long-standing stalwarts of George Heriot’s P1 – have now joined forces to produce Carecrow, a gentle tale with a phonemic twist.
Kids love playing with sounds. And in this story, the wind blows away the first sounds of all the farm animals’ names. The dog becomes an ‘og’, the cat, an ‘at’, the ‘ig’ is oinking and it’s all very confusing! So Scarecrow helps to sort everyone out.
‘It’s a simple idea,’ says Penny, ‘but it comes from spending so many years working with emergent readers with Elizabeth.
‘Elizabeth has always been really supportive of my writing, helping me think through the illustrations for Little Mouse Yawns, a story which went on to be shortlisted for the Searchlight Awards 2025. Because what many people don’t realise is that, as well as being an awesome P1 teacher, Elizabeth is a brilliant artist. So when she started playing with some watercolours for Carecrow and suggested we self-publish the book as the end-of-year gift for the P1s, how could I say no? I would never have dreamed of doing this on my own – I just write stories – so this book is all down to her! To purchase a copy of Carecrow, please click here.
The pair are now collaborating on their next project, A Sackful of Space, which will be released this Autumn.
