Why Stanley? What’s in a name?

The name Stanley fitted our image and character of a water vole perfectly, and so the story was written with his name fixed and in place right from the start. In fact every character name chosen for our storybooks is crucially important to me, and sometimes I conduct a buzz test to see what sounds the best!

Other times, I share my thoughts and we bounce some names around, but for Stanley I loved him from the start and it’s a joy to know that many children and adults do too.

 

Why a water vole?

Water voles are important in our environment as they are mini ecosystem engineers, rather like beavers but on a smaller scale,  and they contribute greatly to healthy river ecology. They are the largest of the vole family in our country and have an exceptionally wide appetite of vegetation. In fact scientists discovered when studying a vole’s nest by random, that one single vole had approximately 182 different plants and berries in it’s larder already stocked away for the colder months ahead – just like in Stanley’s story. For more information on water voles check out these details from the Kent Wildlife Trust. 

Water voles are sadly in decline, and are listed as endangered on both the Great Britain and the England Red List for Mammals. Population in GB is around 132,000 and they have undergone one of the most serious declines of any mammal in Britain. With one of the reasons for their decline being habitat loss and water pollution, the marriage between our Stanley and the plastic litter issue was sealed.

We wanted children to understand the connection between the two and that by disposing of litter properly would allow for cleaner environments especially in or by the water where Stanley and his friends live. So our storybook details this issue precisely and introduces children to a wild animal, and one who doesn’t like people coming near his home as it scares him. He, as in Stanley doesn’t understand that the humans are there to ultimately help and clean up the environment. So our storybook teaches children how our waterways can be impacted by plastic pollution and how our wildlife suffers as a result of people’s careless actions, and of course what we can all do to help in this situation.

Litter Champions and Stanley!

Stanley has been instrumental in creating many litter champions and environmental warriors around the country throughout schools.  Lots of organisations continue to use his resources and storybook to highlight the message of litter, plastic and engage children with our various fun activities, for instance, teaching them how long plastic can be sitting in our environment prior to it breaking down into microplastics and what that means for biodiversity and us too.

Contact me directly if you’d like more information regarding our workshop resources jenny@talesfrommotherearth.co.uk

Children get it!! 

Children really understand the message and when I run our workshops, the kids are eager to act responsibly and get litter disposed of correctly which is so heartwarming. The message within our Stanley also touches on recycling, waste and the circular economy all important subjects for young minds to understand.

It’s a joy to see children engage with our storybook Stanley the Water Vole, and judging from the comments and feedback we get, I know they’ll never look at crisp packets the same again!

 

 

To purchase your copy of Stanley the Water Vole and see some of our other children’s titles, please go to https://talesfrommotherearth.co.uk/shopwhere-you-can-purchase-our-childrens-audio-picture-storybooks/

All storybooks now with QR code for downloading our audio tracks x4