North Swindon-based children’s author and publisher Kate Claxton and her body positive picture book, My Mum’s a Tiger, have been named the winner of the Gold Award for preschool books in the Made For Mums Awards this week.
With competition from long-established publishers such as Hachette UK and Thames and Hudson, the win for Kate and her publishing company Really Rather Wild Books is said to be a triumph for the underdog.
Kate and Really Rather Wild have only been in business for less than three years.
Considered one of the most influential awards for parent and child products, the Made for Mums Awards saw over 1,000 individual products assessed and judged by a panel of expert parenting judges, as well as at-home family testers.
The winning products were chosen based on a range of criteria including appeal, unique concept, design and learning opportunities.
The judges said of Kate’s international-selling book: “We loved this positive, empowering book that helps to introduce your children to body positivity at an early age. It also proved to be a great communication tool, enabling our testers to start conversations with their little ones about how everyone is different.”
Kate said: “I can’t quite believe we’ve managed to make the shortlist of this incredible award, let alone win Gold! I wrote this book as a first birthday gift for my daughter, with no experience of publishing other than the books we knew and loved at home.
"The unprecedented support from parents and little readers around the world has been absolutely amazing, and winning against beautiful books from huge publishers has definitely encouraged me to keep going in this tough industry that often discourages self-starters and independent publishers. Underdogs 1 - Big Dogs 0.”
My Mum’s a Tiger, which encourages children to ‘be more like animals and wear our marks with pride’ as well as Kate’s latest release, Searching for a Roarer, can be found locally in Bert’s Books in Old Town, or signed copies are available to order online at www.reallyratherwild.com.
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