By Tate Papworth
From a simple poem, big things have grown.
In 2004, Monika Athanasiou wrote a poem about swallowing butterflies.
She’d heard about a man, George, who had published his own book and arranged to meet him so she could pick his brain about how he did it.
“I’d heard about this man who had published his own book and I really wanted to meet him,” she said. “We found we had so much in common that one coffee became two, which became five, then 10 and here we are today.”
The pair and the poem have come a long way since that night.
Now husband and wife, George and Monika have turned the poem into a children’s book, called
I Think I Have Swallowed Butterflies.
The story follows a boy who goes on a trip to a zoo with his school class, only to leave feeling as though he’d swallowed butterflies.
George said the story could connect with readers on a number of levels.
“For some kids, this book will simply be a story about going to the zoo with their class, for other kids it’ll be about issues like anxiety and shyness,” he said.
He said it was teaching kids that everybody gets butterflies in their stomach.
“Hopefully, this encourages them to be more confident,” he said
Con Constantinou was enlisted to illustrate the book.
“I really liked the poem and the fact it was about emotions and children discovering their own emotions and being OK with them,” he said.
The book will be launched at the Panarcadian Association building in North Melbourne on Sunday, September 16, from 3pm.
