Rhyme for a reason!

Former Bahrain resident and Scottish national Jess Stansfield has released her debut book Tora The Tiger Learns Her Lessons – a rhyming children’s story, which sensitises young minds to nature while also teaching them how to face hardships in life, writes Melissa Nazareth.

The 32-page tale, written for children aged between three and seven, follows Tora, a tiger cub who wants to hunt on her own.

It takes both the reader and listener on a journey as the wild cat learns how to be a tiger under the watchful eye of her mother.

“The book aims to highlight the plight of endangered animals and the environmental reasons for their predicament,” the 63-year-old learning assistant and former primary school teacher told GulfWeekly.

“Through the medium of a rhyming story, children learn about the perils facing tigers and how they can face similar perils in their own lives.

“I am personally concerned about the planet. It is important to help children develop empathy with the creatures of the earth.

“For many years I have enjoyed writing rhyming verses for relatives and friends to mark special occasions so, it followed that my stories would rhyme,” she added.

Jess started work on the book in 2018, when she researched tigers and made many notes about their physical characteristics, habitats, predators and breeding.

“I was working full time at this point, so I was a little sporadic in my approach. Then, Covid-19 struck. As restrictions were lifted, I had to travel to Scotland to see my newly born grandson. However, I had to isolate in a hotel for 10 days. This was the perfect opportunity to get to grips with the story without outside distractions or time limitations,” she reminisced.

Tora the Tiger is Jess’ first ‘official’ writing project. Previously, she has written in the capacity of a teacher – stories that she later recorded for a phonics lesson for her class and monthly newsletters to parents. The former Janabiya resident, who called Bahrain home for nine years, worked as a pre-school teacher while she lived in the kingdom; she left in 2023.

“As a book lover from childhood, I made it my mission to ‘infect’ as many people as I could with the ‘book bug’,” noted the book-lover, who has had a front-row seat watching her author husband Glen Stansfield at work.

“I have witnessed the range of emotions involved in writing. I could see that, though he experienced many frustrations and disappointments, the thrill of having his own book at the end of it all, made it worthwhile. I began to think maybe I could do it too.”