Nicola Davies: inspiring a generation of readers, writers, artists, environmentalists and changemakers

In the week leading up to book week at #BISHCMC we take a look back at Term 2’s inspiring visit from award-winning British children’s book author Nicola Davies. Nicola has written over 60 books, winning multiple literary awards over the years. As a trained zoologist and former presenter of the UK TV show “The Really Wild Show”, Nicola’s love of the natural world is a prominent theme throughout her work. 

Nicola Davies spent 3 days across our three campuses, presenting workshops to children on poetry and creative writing. She shared her knowledge and experience as a zoologist with the use of whale songs and supported our students in developing poetry based on the natural world. 

"The Promise" to Our Earth

In addition to working with our students from Foundation Stage 1 up to Year 7, we were fortunate to watch a film screening of “The Promise”, an animation by British Vietnamese filmmaker Chi Thai, which brings Nicola’s book of the same name to life on the big screen. The Promise is a story of a young girl living on the street, who is given an opportunity to plant seeds around her city. She goes from place to place, planting seeds and watching the city become a vibrant and more joyful landscape, significantly improving both the environment around her and her own internal environment.

Nicola chose a less fortunate child to lead her inspirational story with the aim of speaking to them:

“You won’t always be a powerless child, your story can change and your future may be better than your present, take any opportunity you can to change your life, and your future may improve.”

Our students are able to learn an important lesson here too. When we share our seeds (or our knowledge, time and resources) we can create a better future for someone else, and for the community around us. Of course, the book holds an important environmental message too. 




“I wanted a story that very simply said every single of us has the power to change the world and I know that it will change just one heart at a time. As a storyteller, I know that when someone opens my book, I have the opportunity to change that heart and to change the world one heart at a time.” 



And change one heart at a time the book did, across the world. Nicola even received messages from areas of war-torn Afghanistan, where the book was being passed around like a precious relic inspiring the Afghan people to build community gardens and rejuvenate their ravaged landscape, bringing hope to all. In Scotland, it was at the heart of a tree planting campaign, where every school in Glasgow sent children to plant tree saplings after reading the story. “They absolutely understood the power of what they were doing. The children said I'm going to bring my children here, my grandchildren here when these trees are grown”.

The inspiring talk showed us the power we all hold as individuals to make a difference to the world around us. “You plant the seed of a tree and you are planting a life that stretches out into the future far beyond your small human life and the life of a tree supports many other lives. If you have a bag of tree seeds, you are planting a forest. Is there a more powerful long-lasting action that any human being can take?” 

You can watch Chi Thai’s animation of “The Promise” here: 

Her Inspiration

When asked by a parent what inspired her to write, Nicola shared that she is motivated by her desire to share her love for the natural world and how we can all do our part in protecting it.

“There are lots of promises we can make individually to use less energy and to use less of the world's resources. But we also need to extract promises from our leaders to take action against climate change so that the future of our children is assured.”

She also shared that as the youngest child of three with a large age gap between her siblings, and having to move house a lot led her to seek refuge in books. “It seems like the most natural thing but also the greatest privilege to be able to recreate the reading experience for young people.” As Ms Maria Shooter, Assistant Head of the Early Years and Infant Campus says “Reading is one of the most powerful things you can do with your children”. Reading not only builds knowledge and vocabulary, but it also stimulates our imagination and creativity, provides a sense of comfort and inspires us to change the world. 

Inspiring a Generation of BISHCMC Writers

Nicola worked with our students to identify rhymes and form their own poetry. Here is a poem one student in Year 2 wrote when working with Nicola: 

Blue

Blue like the sky
Blue like the skin of a whale
Blue like a dolphin’s fin
Cyan, turquoise, navy, indigo,
Violet, black, grey and white where the waves splash.
Brown where human trash flows in
Full of plastic bags, empty cans, drinking straws and water bottles.
Coral bleached and dead turtles tangled in old nets.
Seagulls and pelicans with oil on their feathers.
Ships and whales crashing into each other.
We need to think about other living things.

Illustrating a Story

Beyond this Nicola also inspired the artists of #BISHCMC. She discussed with students how her writing process involves sketching and painting to develop her ideas in more detail and spoke of the collaborative relationship between author and illustrator. She spoke of one such collaboration where she actually wrote words to match an artist’s illustrations, a great example of art meeting literature that you could try at home with your children.

“Picture books are a terrific art form, they can talk about the most difficult topics. I’ve written about grief, disability, refugees and warfare all in the form of picture books.”

Where to find Nicola’s books:

If you would like to take out a copy of one of Nicola’s books, we have the following in stock:

Early Years & Infant Library:	Junior Library:	Secondary  Library:
The Promise Every Child a Song King of the Sky The Word Bird Last - the Story of a White Rhino Invertebrates are Cool Animal Surprises Grow - Secrets of our DNA One Tiny Turtle	Choose Love One World The Lion Who Stole My Arm The Day War Came Emperor of the Ice Lots - The Diversity of Life on Earth	The Song That Sings Us

For 2023 Book Week we leave you with this thought from Nicola: “All human beings are storytellers, we use stories to communicate with each other. Stories are a really powerful, simple medium and they can convey absolutely everything. Communicating across cultures, languages and barriers that separate human beings. Stories are a way of joining us together and making us feel like one community.”