Basingstoke girl, 12, publishes children's book

Ankara Prabdial, from Cliddesden, who wrote the story initially for her little brother Yashk, has also done the illustrations for the book.

“I am so happy that the book is finally released,” said Ankara, who is a student of St Swithun's School in Winchester.

“It took a while to get through the process, but it feels like all that hard work has paid off.”

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Her dad Yakeen said Ankara’s story is an imagination of an incident that happened during her holidays in Spain.

“Just before the lockdown, we went to a beach in Spain where she was jumping around in her bathing suit and glasses,” Yakeen said.

“My daughter can’t see very well without her glasses. Unfortunately, they fell down when she was jumping and washed away by the waves. The whole holiday was ruined for her because she couldn’t see anything.

“But I got the whole incident on my camera. The video has her brother telling her not to worry because a crab might have picked up the glasses for itself. More than a year later, Ankara was going through the old videos and took this idea to write a story for her brother.”

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Yakeen, a management consultant, said he helped his daughter get online training in illustrations from a coach in Mexico.

“My daughter is a fan of Manga and Anime. So, with the help of her illustrations coach Yeimi Zarate, she drew the pictures for her story and the book started coming to life. We ended up launching the book in Amazon just before Christmas,” the dad said.

The book titled The Sea Stole My Glasses is available on Amazon.

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