Rab Ferguson, the author of ‘The Late Crew’ series about young carers and aliens talks awareness raising and his previous visits to Sheffield this Young Carers Action Day!
To help us mark this years Young Carers Action Day, Rab Ferguson very kindly offered to write a short blog for SYC. Rab’s series ‘The Late Crew’ is a brilliant combination of fantastic story-telling and awareness raising, with some alien adventures added into the mix. We’d like to say a MASSIVE thank you to Rab for taking the time out of his busy schedule to write this piece for us. We’ll stop talking now and let you get stuck into Rab’s blog!
‘Last year, I stood in front of assemblies in 7 different primary schools in Sheffield (as seen in the picture gallery above), and read from my award-winning book The Late Crew about a group of young carers who meet aliens. This rather wonderful school book tour was arranged by Sheffield Young Carers – because like myself they believe that young carers are awesome, and deserve to be the heroes in books.
The Late Crew is about 11 year old Tyler, who supports his autistic young brother Levi (a space expert and hero in his own right!) to complete his routines, as well as helping his mother who has chronic fatigue. He also ends up looking after an alien egg, and trying to avoid a slime-controlled headteacher!
There’s also a sequel now, about Alisha who supports her mum with her “Letters” (what Mum calls her mental health issues) and contends with an alien that can transform into a copy of any animal it sees.
There’s a bunch of reasons it’s brilliant to have books where young carers are the heroes. The first – and most important – is because young carers can really enjoy them!
I was lucky enough to be invited by a group of young carers to read at the Sheffield Young Carers AGM (the event is delivered by young carers, and unlike most AGMS, is SUPER COOL).
After the reading, young carers and their families worked with me to invent their own aliens! When you have RIDICULOUS, ADVENTURE-FILLED, SILLY books with young carers in, you’re encouraging young carers that they are allowed to be creative and silly and imaginative too.
Stories are also a great way of helping people understand what it means to be a young carer. If kids read a story about young carers, they might be more able to say, “oh, that’s me, I do that”, or to empathise with friends who have caring responsibilities at home.
A teacher (or other adult working with families) who reads a book like this, might be more likely to stop and think about why a child is tired at school, or late to class – and be better able to offer support. It’s why I always make sure young carers’ families are shown in a positive light in the books – I want to help people understand all the different shapes family can take.
I suppose the last question, is why ALIENS? Why not just have books about young carers, with no extraterrestrials?
Because aliens are FUN. And young carers deserve fun books!’
The first The Late Crew book is being re-released by Valley Press, alongside the new sequel, with pre-orders available now to arrive in Summer. Each pre-order massively helps Rab to share the series and its young carer heroes more widely - and guarantees excitement in Summer when the book drops through your letterbox!
To find out more about Rab's work with schools and charities, visit The Late Crew website
