When Delly Duck lays two eggs, she is excited for them to hatch. But she doesn’t really know how to keep eggs safe, or how to look after the ducklings when they hatch. See how a concerned goose tries to help Delly to learn how to care for the ducklings, in this sensitively-written adoption story.

Delly Duck: Why A Little Chick Couldn’t Stay With His Birth Mother and this special siblings/twins edition are intended to help support and stimulate discussion around some of the questions an adopted or fostered child (or another child trying to understand adoption) may have. The story can be used to help answer difficult and emotive questions, such as “Why can’t I live with my birth mother?” and “Why didn’t someone just teach her how to parent me safely?”

No two adoption stories are the same, so symbolism has been used that is open to appropriate interpretation by the parent, kinship carer, social worker, play therapist, teacher or other adult reading this story with a child. The beautifully-illustrated story includes animal characters that may reflect common behaviours and responsibilities of several of the key people involved in an adoption process. Delly is a likeable duck, who sadly makes some poor choices and struggles to care for her ducklings in a consistently safe way.

The book includes a helpful guide to the symbolism, with suggestions as to how the various metaphors can be used to support therapeutic life story work and answer questions about the challenges faced by a child’s birth parents, such as memory or concentration problems, addiction and/or poor or inconsistent role models during their own childhoods.
Above all, it portrays that all adults involved want the best for adopted children, and that they are so very loved.

Delly Duck is a popular story with kinship (special guardianship) families and connected carers, particularly when used alongside Marlow’s award-winning bestseller, Room in the Nest. It will appeal to readers of The Blanket Bears, The Invisible String, and the works of Sarah Naish and Todd Parr.

Praise for Delly Duck: Why A Little Chick Couldn’t Stay With His Birth Mother

“One of the best Adoption books of all time” – BookAuthority

“…a beautifully illustrated children’s story book, explaining big issues like adoption and fostering, in an age appropriate way.” – We Made A Wish adoption magazine

“…Delly Duck is a great choice for adopted and fostered children to explain adoption or support therapeutic life story work. The book can be used to help answer difficult and emotive questions…” – Maggie and Rose Book Adventurers

“A fantastic book for Parents, Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, Legal Guardians, Kinship Carers, Social Workers, Play Therapists or Teachers… I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is adopting, fostering, or is a child’s Legal Guardian… the book shows the love, and loss of the birth parent, and highlights the fact that sometimes a birth parent is simply not equipped with the necessary skills to keep their child safe consistently.
This beautiful, sensitively written story explains why a child may need to be removed from their birth parent, and explores in a gentle way the emotions felt by parent and child, and the roles other people play in protecting the child, and offering the child a loving, safe environment…” – Icing on the Bake

Delly Duck is available in English, French, German (as Delly Ente) and Spanish (as Nova el Pato).
Please click on the author’s name to see more titles by Holly Marlow.

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Winner of the Literary Titan GOLD Award, March 2023.

From the author of award-winning children’s story book, Delly Duck: Why A Little Chick Couldn’t Stay With His Birth Mother and other adoption and fostering children’s stories, comes a heartwarming story featuring a mixture of familiar and new characters.

Mr and Mrs Swan build a big nest, so that they have plenty of room to help anyone who needs them. Teach children about different kinds of foster care, with this touching tale of fostering placements leading to reunification, kinship care, adoption and long term foster care / fostering-to-adopt. This inclusive story features different types of family, including same-sex and single parents, and can be used as a therapeutic tool to help care-experienced children to process their experiences, or as an effective teaching aid to normalise and explain foster care and other family structures to all children.

Praise for Room in the Nest

“…This magnificent story shows sensitivity to the topic and complicated feelings surrounding foster care. She explains how the Caring Goose always tries to help the parents out first and give them guidance and that she is not trying to rip families apart but instead shows compassion and works to try and keep families together. Still, sometimes that is not always best for the children. Room in the Nest is a heartwarming picture book that teaches children about foster care, foster placements, long-term fostering, kinship care, reunification, adoption, and a broad look at family court. This is a beautiful story to share with children that have to go through this process to help ease their fears and for other children to understand what happens if someone they know goes into foster care. This honest and beautiful look at the system is a much-needed resource for families, teachers, social workers, and anyone working with troubled families.” – Literary Titan

“…Holly has taken a complex and emotionally charged concept and presented it in a way that children will appreciate and understand…” – Readers’ Favorite

“…Room in the Nest” is a great tool to use for life story work to start discussions about foster carers. It’s also a great book for all children to read, to help them understand why some children need to stay with foster carers sometimes for a short period of time, sometimes for much longer.” – We Made A Wish adoption magazine

Praise for Delly Duck: Why A Little Chick Couldn’t Stay With His Birth Mother

“One of the best adoption books of all time” – BookAuthority

“…a beautifully illustrated children’s story book, explaining big issues like adoption and fostering, in an age appropriate way.” – We Made A Wish adoption magazine

“…Delly Duck is a great choice for adopted and fostered children to explain adoption or support therapeutic life story work. The book can be used to help answer difficult and emotive questions…” – Maggie and Rose Book Adventurers

“A fantastic book for Parents, Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, Legal Guardians, Kinship Carers, Social Workers, Play Therapists or Teachers… I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is adopting, fostering, or is a child’s Legal Guardian… I love the way the book shows the love, and loss of the birth parent, and highlights the fact that sometimes a birth parent is simply not equipped with the necessary skills to keep their child safe consistently.
This beautiful, sensitively written story explains why a child may need to be removed from their birth parent, and explores in a gentle way the emotions felt by parent and child, and the roles other people play in protecting the child, and offering the child a loving, safe environment…” – Icing on the Bake

Please click on the series name to see more titles by this author about foster care, kinship care and adoption.

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Teach your children about Mental Strength, Resilience and a Growth Mindset. With My Strong Mind your children will be introduced to mental strength and learn social skills and techniques to develop their own strong mind.

This first My Strong Mind introduces Kate, a sporty and happy girl who uses her strong mind to tackle her daily challenges with a positive attitude.

Kate faces several situations your children will face too. She applies a positive attitude to deal with her challenges. Amongst them are getting ready in time in the morning, doing cartwheels, standing in front of the whole class with show and tell and playing basketball.

Kate applies techniques like goal setting, positive self-talk, accept failure as learning, visualisation of a problem, breathing or mindfulness exercise, gratitude, and controlled distraction.

These tips to build a strong mind in children are presented in an easy to read, fun and practical way. All tips and techniques your children learn are evidence based to improve mental health, well-being and performance.

It’s a great book for children, especially those at primary school, to read under their own steam. Kate’s story will open the door for your children to commence building their own strong mind.

The My Strong Mind book series are the world’s only children’s books that educate parents and children around the scientifically validated 4 Cs of mental toughness: Commitment, Control, Confidence & Challenge.

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