Flora and Rainbow Hopping Bug
Inspiration for the book…
Flora and Rainbow Hopping Bug is a joint collaboration between Helen Lewis (Author) and Asiyeh Ansari (Illustrator), who met six years ago whilst working as Early Childhood Educators. They still work in the field and have over 27 years of experience between them.
This beautifully illustrated story was inspired by Helen’s daughter, an avid lover of bugs and animals, who one day decided to bring a cricket into the house. Helen captured the emotional journey her daughter went through when the bug got lost and the surprising discovery she made along the way.
“Flora and Rainbow Hopping Bug is by far one of my favourite children’s books. It is one of those stories that children will ask you to read time and time again. This story takes us back to nature, has a great message of building emotional resilience and it is written in such a way that is thought provoking and inspires lots of questions. The illustrations in this book are nothing short of stunning with the amount of detail that has gone into each page and if children look closely enough there is an animal that will appear on each page!”
— Jessica, Early Childhood Educator
Bringing the characters to life…
Meeting Flora
When Helen first wrote the first draft of the poem, the girl in the story didn’t have a name. It was only later when her personality started to become clear that she was named Flora, because of it’s link to nature. Over time, Flora developed a life of her own as we explored her emotional journey, her lively personality and how she would react in certain situations.
After Asiyeh read the poem for the first time, her artistic imagination went wild and she sent back the first every illustration of Flora in about a hour.
© Rainbow Hopping Bug
© Rainbow Hopping Bug
Making Rainbows
Rainbow Hopping Bug has a colourful stomach, which is how he makes his rainbow trail.
© Rainbow Hopping Bug
© Rainbow Hopping Bug
A beautiful friendship
Just a day after reading the poem for the first time, Asiyeh drew Flora and Rainbow Hopping Bug together. The connection between Flora and Rainbow has always been playful as we wanted to show how a bug might look through the eyes of a young child.
In our years of experience, children view insects and bugs as things of wonder to be watched, marvelled at and studied.
© Rainbow Hopping Bug
© Rainbow Hopping Bug