These books started some years ago as a bedtime story to my young step-granddaughter.
The invention of the Heckle family was supposed to put her to sleep; that didn’t work. She was full of giggles and kept asking questions about them. So the initial story went on for some time. She obviously enjoyed the images her mind created.
Months later I took a very boring job with an equally boring bus ride to that job. I began to scratch down a few sentences recalling what I had made-up months before. Each day there were a few more sentences.
I decided to put these sentences into the computer. As time progressed the first book was taking shape; at this point not really by intention.
I started to think of what a real book would look like and the structure of it.
Being a former teacher I wanted to encourage reading but didn’t want to make it too difficult. It needed to be read to young children by a parent but challenging enough to interest teenagers.
It also needed to be long enough to require a few visits to finish, but not a length that would seem daunting to a reader. Maybe 40 to 50 pages.
There was a need for humour that was appreciated and engaged my step-granddaughter on first hearing about the Heckles. I hoped to extend this in a subtle way to adults that may be reading to their children as I found that process a bit tedious years before. This may have worked as adults that have read the books have used the word “chuckle”.
Once the behaviours and the environment in which the Heckles lived was established I wanted to see how they would react doing things that we all find easy and take for granted. Each new book describes how they deal with tasks that turn into adventures; the beach; Christmas lunch; going for pizza; learning maths; going to the football.
Each book segues into the next book and the next adventure.
I also wanted the books to be interactive, so simple line drawings of the family or a scene from the book, were included to be coloured in if the reader wanted too. There is also a blank page at the end of the books for the reader to draw their own Heckle picture.
