As many of you know, I am a bit of a cat lover and I do some work for Cats Protection, in various ways. A local author, Jenny Henwood, has just had her first book published. Atticus’s Secret is the first in The Rainbow Riding School children’s book series for children aged 4 years and upwards. The story is about a wonderful group of ponies and all their friends. There’s Ptolemy the wise old owl who provides the moral compass, Ketchup The Cockerel who delights in providing bite size chunks of humour along with Atticus the stable cat. Jenny is kindly donating 50p from each book sold to one of four animal charities; the children decide which charity they would like their 50p to go to. Cats Protection is one of those charities.
Author’s Bio
Jenny Henwood is a full time working mum and part time author. Growing up Jenny was lucky enough to go to riding lessons and that is where her passion for ponies began and she dreamed one day of owning her own riding school. She went to weekly riding lessons and begged her parents for a pony and every year would enter Pony magazine’s Win a Pony competition in the hope of taking a step towards her dream. When Jenny was seven years old she drew a picture of The Rainbow Riding School. The white distinctive u-shape stable block looks the same today as when she first drew it with the distinctive rainbow arch at the entrance. Naming all the ponies and their door colours using a DIY store’s paint chart Jenny made up adventures about all the ponies.
Life, as we all know marches on and as Jenny’s teenage years came and went and her studies took over she had less time for riding. Her life took her down a completely different career path; to college, university where she obtained a first class honours degree and then on into a career in finance and media. She never did fulfil her dream of one day owning her own riding school but neither, too, did she ever quite forget it.
It was when her own daughter turned 5 years old and she had the opportunity to take some riding lessons that Jenny began to tell her about her Rainbow Riding School. It was the look of pure joy on her face as she recounted the gentle tales of all the ponies and their friends that really ignited in her the passion to write the stories down.
Jenny is self-publishing the books (there are currently seven in the first series and plans for a second and third series are already in draft). Jenny has a strong desire to give something back to society so she has chosen four animal charities that complement the characters in her books and 50p of each book sale can be chosen by the reader to go to one of these well deserving charities.
Jenny feels it is a huge privilege to be able to write for children but is acutely aware that with this privilege brings enormous responsibility. She really hopes that these books will be a wonderful way of bringing back the innocence of stories that Jenny had the pleasure of reading as a child that always seemed full of happy-endings and strong moral guidance.
Jenny hopes that children will grow to love and care for all the characters in The Rainbow Riding School as much as she does.
Esther Chilton 
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