Published on October 14, 2020
If you love books and you love flying unicorns, you’re going to love a colourful new children’s book about a flying unicorn written and illustrated by HVGS Kindergartner Laila Sarki; believed to be the youngest child in Australia to have written and illustrated a storybook.
Laila’s story “Hop Pop the Flying Unicorn” is a colourful and uplifting tale about a flying unicorn with a penchant for cupcakes, all things pink and an aspiring career in medicine!
“My book is about being kind. Hop Pop is a very kind character,” says Laila
“There are sick children in hospital who like to read, so I wanted to write them a story to make them feel better.”
“I hope that it will make people feel happy when they read it.”
Hop Pop and her wonderful ways were brought to life when Laila learned about the HVGS Book Week Competition and the opportunity for students K-2 to submit a 200-word entry.
“I wanted to enter the Book Week competition at School, so I just wrote about what I liked and what I felt. I had some help from my mum with the really tricky words – like unicorn – but I came up with all the ideas myself,” says Laila.
The colourful book is written in Laila’s own handwriting, which she only learned and perfected since starting kindergarten this year.
Laila isn’t resting on her laurels though. Not satisfied with only one book under her belt, she is now in the writing process for her second story in the Hop Pop series already titled “Hop Pop’s New Adventure.”
“The new book will be even better,” says Laila. “I absolutely love reading and colouring my own books, and I hope everyone else likes them too.”