A Sandbach mum-of-two's love for reading stories to her children has opened the pages on a whole world.

Book lover, Karen Winward, has used her experiences of going to the zoo with her children and everyday life to write a book.

And the result is a colourful tale of multi-coloured Zee Zee the Zebra which has just been published and is Karen's first children's book.

A Communications Manager for world-wide engineering firm Jacobs by day, Karen used lockdown as an opportunity to write several children's books.

The first is Zee Zee the Zebra, which like the others is inspired by her son Josh (9) and daughter Issy (6) who love to bury their noses in a good book. .

Karen hopes Zee the Zebra will help children understand from an early age that everyone is unique and that kindness is key to help everyone feel accepted.

She said: "The book book tells the story of Zee Zee, who looks different to the other zebras.

"Her friends don't let her join in with their games, and this makes Zee Zee feel sad but Zee Zee and her friends learn that being different is ok because it's what makes us all special.

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"It explores the view that we shouldn't exclude anyone and we should celebrate differences."

The 37-year-old says she always wanted to write children's books and include important messages like being kind and celebrating differences.

"We go to Chester Zoo about once a year and zebras are my daughter's favourite.

"Kindness is one of the things which came out of the pandemic," says Karen who wrote parts of the book as she waited in her car on the school run.

And now her children who helped inspire the book and love of writing are to see the fruits of their mum's labour.

For Karen, a patron of reading at her children's school, Brereton Primary near Sandbach has been invited to go into school in the New Year and read her book.

"I'm so excited about it," she says. "I'll be reading to Reception and Years 1 and 2 I believe.

"I'll also be donating some of my books to the school. I've always read a lot to the children and this sparked my desire to write books."

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Zee Zee the Zebra is priced £5.99 and can be bought on Amazon https://amzn.to/3DRfAou or search for 'Karen Winward', and you can follow her publishing story on social media or via her website