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Teenage author discounts book to mark Bereaved Childrens Awareness Week
Bereaved Childrens Awareness Week – Sarah Corbett Lynch pictured above with her brother Jack and her book Noodle Loses Dad.
Teenage author discounts book to mark Bereaved Childrens Awareness Week
A Limerick teenager, who lost both of her parents in tragic circumstances by the time she was eight years old, has made the second print run of her successful children’s book on bereavement available at a discounted price this Christmas to help the increased number of families coping with grief in light of Covid-19.
Sarah Corbett Lynch’s mother, Mags, died from a severe Asthma attack when Sarah was 12 weeks old. When she was four, Sarah then went to live in America with her Dad, Jason, to start a new life. He died suddenly in 2015, when Sarah was eight years old and her brother, Jack, was 10. They moved back to Ireland to live with her aunt and uncle, Tracey and David Lynch, in Raheen, Limerick.
Sarah and the Cervical Cancer campaigner, Stephen Teap, helped launch Bereaved Children’s Awareness Week with interviews on RTE and Newstalk on Monday. Mr Teap’s wife, Irene, died of cervical cancer when their sons Oscar and Noah were just four and two,
Sarah’s book “Noodle Loses Dad” received rave reviews after it was highly recommended by Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Toy Show last year. She also drew five-star reviews on Amazon after being interviewed in the United States on the Fox 8 news channel. Earlier this month, she won a National Garda Youth Award for the book and her volunteer work with bereaved children. Having lost her own grandmother this year to Covid-19, Sarah is particularly conscious of how more children may be struggling with grief in 2020.
“Christmas can be a challenging time especially for children suffering grief. There are more people, adults and children, reading now and buying their books on-line because of Covid-19, so when I was approached recently about making my book available in public libraries across the country, it reaffirmed for me that some children experiencing grief are benefitting from the book and it is helping them. I hope this book might help bereaved children to understand the feelings they are having and hopefully be able to cope better with them,” Sarah, 14, said.
“Noodle Loses Dad is the first book of the Boogawooga series. Noodle lives in the Woodland forest with her family when she loses the most important person in her life – Boogawooga. Noodle Loses Dad is based on my story. It is a journey written by a child for children. I am Noodle. She has just lost her dad and she is alone and afraid with her brother Paws, then her family comes and takes her in. She has to deal with the loss of her Dad, moving, making new friends, beginning new school and a new neighbourhood. The story is about the journey of a little bear through losing someone they love and becoming part of a blended family. Noodle has an adventure to another place and ultimately finds hope and resilience.
“I realised there were other kids like me who had lost someone they loved. I thought that if I published my book that they would know that they are not the only kids out there who have lost a parent, because for me when I lost my dad, I thought we were the only ones in the world and that felt really scary. I hope other children can read the book and discover skills to cope and that they can find hope and happiness again like I did,” Sarah said.
To mark Childhood Bereavement Awareness week, which runs from Nov 23 – 27th, Noodle Loses Dad, can be purchased throughout the Christmas period at the discounted price of €7, plus postage fees, from www.sarahcorbettlynch.com
For other Sarah Corbett Lynch stories go HERE
To buy Sarah’s book ‘Noodle Loses Dad’ click HERE