Alison McLennan is a Qld based children’s author. Her picture books include Growing Pains, Hotel For Bees, Great and Small, and Birdie Lights Up The World. Her graphic novel, A Flood in the Village, was published by Library For All, as part of their Natural Disaster Education Series, and her short stories have appeared in The School Magazine. Alison’s first junior fiction series, Calamity Jones, is coming out in late 2023. While not writing for kids, Alison is a professional voiceover artist, singer, actor and mother of two teenagers and two fur babies.

Great and Small, written by Alison and illustrated by Connah Brecon is a story about Eunice, a tiny unicorn with very big dreams. When her attempt to compete at the Great Unicorn Games ends badly, she creates her own magical event that brings the whole forest together. Great and Small has themes of diversity, inclusion, persistence, participating in sport for the pure love and fun of it, democracy and citizenship, and also friendship.

THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING GREAT AND SMALL

The hardest thing about writing Great and Small was figuring out what the story should be. I knew I wanted to write a story for my daughter who was a premmie baby and the smallest in her class at school. I had the idea of a tiny unicorn in my head who was different to the other unicorns. But the story itself was tricky and it changed many times over about 3 years before I got it just right. And then, lots of publishers were interested in the story but they all wanted it to change in some way. And they all wanted Eunice to be something different, like a rhino or a daschund! I had to fight very hard to keep her a unicorn and I’m really glad I did. 

THE MOST FUN THING ABOUT WRITING THIS BOOK

The most fun part of writing this book was picturing all the funny things that were going on in the background of the main story. Not all of them made it into the book unfortunately, but in the version in my head they’re still there. 

Eunice’s super power is being small and mighty. If you could choose any super power to have, what would it be and why? What would you do with your power? Would you be a hero or a villain?

WRITING PROMPT

Write a list a magical creatures and then pick your favourite. Write 5 things to describe your creature and then write the opposite of those five things and see what strange creature you end up with. 

You can visit Alison here:

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/alisonmclennanchildrensauthor

insta:   ally_mclennan

Or buy the book here:
publisher: www.storytorch.com.au

to buy the book: https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/great-and-small-by-alison-mclennan-