In about a week from now, we’re launching a Kickstarter to help publish our new book: Grumpy Ness Finds Happiness.  In some ways we’ve gone full circle (or full square, given that this is our fourth book!) because, in December 2013, we did the same thing to publish our first book. Back then we reached our target in the first seven days – it was thrilling and humbling to get such swift and generous support.  How exciting will it be if we manage it again?

In the years that followed we have launched two more books: Hairy Scary’s Bad Day and Chinwag’s tale and written and drawn and painted a fourth.  All our books contain little nuggets of knowledge that will help children cope with the pressures of life.  We’ve developed free lesson plans to go with the books and have been delighted to see them being used in a growing number of schools in their PSHE classes.

Our new character is a feisty little girl called Square Ness. We love her to bits – and we think you will too. Her favourite things are her bicycle and her dress with pockets.  One day Ness wakes up under a cloud – in a real grump. The grumpier she becomes, the bigger the cloud grows.  By the end of the story, she’s learned a few very important things:  you can’t see the stars without darkness, you can’t have rainbows without rain, and sometimes, it’s ok not to feel ok.

Why do we need another Kickstarter after all this time?  Well, the simple truth is that we’re developing a lot of things simultaneously at the moment, from our schools programme to a new podcast to Squarehead the musical (yes a musical!).  It stretches our small company finances very thin. We think it’s important to get the new book out this year – all the children we’ve shown it to think so too.  In order to do that we need support from people like you, so we’re asking that (if you can) you order an advanced copy from Kickstarter, or several advance copies, or a Square Ness soft toy or two – or just go completely mad and order our Ultimate Backer Pack which has everything a Squarehead fan could want.

We have a dream. We’d like to see Squarehead and his friends entertaining and helping a growing number of children. We want him to become a household name, synonymous with all the things that a positive childhood should be about.

.  A big thank you in advance!