Every Cherry: The publishing house creating ground-breaking new books for children with SEND

Emma Steel taught children with special educational needs and disabilities - sometimes referred to as SEND - for about 17 years. 

She mainly taught English, where she found herself being asked to teach a balanced curriculum and a wide range of texts - including classic novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But there was a problem.

“I grew in frustration with the fact that there was very little accessible reading out there for my students,” she told us. “So I would adapt that book into lots of different accessible versions… to make it easier to read.

“I would just do that in the classroom as part of my teaching, and to make sure that reading could be fun and accessible for the students,” she continued. But she eventually realised she wasn’t the only teacher doing this, and there was a need for better resources for SEND pupils that wasn’t being met.

Emma Steel is now the head of Every Cherry, a new imprint of publishing house Sweet Cherry that aims to break down some of the barriers to reading. They have been publishing since May, but there has been more than a year of work taking place behind the scenes - developing innovative and accessible ways to tell stories that are already familiar favourites for many.

Working with educators, students, and SEND communities across the county, Emma and her team have picked out a range of books to adapt to their accessible formats. They’ve also drawn inspiration from the curriculum, choosing classics children would often study in school anyway, like Frankenstein, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Decoding the classics

Every Cherry now has three unique ranges, all designed in different ways, but all of which aim to help different young readers connect with books. The first is the ‘easier’ range, which retells stories using dyslexia-friendly fonts, straight-forward language, and a special layout.

“It has smaller chunks of text in a larger font. White space is our friend because we don't want things to be too overwhelming for the reader,” Emma said. “Because sometimes if a reader opens a book and there's loads of small words, kids will often just put it down. We don't want that to happen.” 

The books have illustrations on every page and glossaries on every spread, so that children don’t need to flick to the back of the book to find out what a new word means. The design also takes into account things many people might not consider, such as page numbers even on those with illustrations - which can be helpful to young people who think very literally.

The second is the symbolised range.  “A lot of people communicate with symbols. So if somebody has a communication difficulty, they might have a device that uses symbols to help them to communicate… they'll press a symbol and it will speak for them,” Emma continued. “But what had shocked me was that there were no books using the symbols that were printed that people could buy in a really good quality format, so that's what we've created.” 

Every Cherry has designed its own lexicon of visual symbols, easy-to-understand images illustrating sometimes quite abstract concepts in the story. “We're starting to create a symbolised reading library so that a person can learn symbols. And as they progress, they can read books like A Christmas Carol or Moby Dick, that everybody would like to have a chance to be able to read one day.”

Their final range is the ‘stories for your senses’ range. “Some people with profound or multiple learning disabilities may never be able to read words, but it doesn't mean they don't want to enjoy a really, really good book like everybody else,” Emma said.

These books engage all of the five senses to help readers experience a text. The books’ designs include QR codes that can be scanned to play audiobooks or even soundscapes - which in titles like ‘A Day at the Beach’, make it sound like you’re really there. Readers are encouraged to gather items from around the house before settling in to read - perhaps with a carer, teacher, or parent’s help - like a torch, towel, or even an ice lolly. They can then touch, taste, smell, and interact with parts of the story themselves, when prompted.

‘Everyone should be able to read a book in a way that suits them’

So far, she had been shocked by the demand for Every Cherry’s offerings. Emma had initially feared the symbolised books were “a bit of a risk” as a publishing house, because as far as she could tell, nobody had done it before. 

“Was there a reason for that? Maybe it's because nobody wanted to buy them, so there wasn't a demand. Turns out that we were wrong and that actually there is a huge demand.” She remembered someone in the office telling her they needed to do reprints as they had sold out on pre-orders alone - before even being published.

Their other ranges too had ended up attracting unexpected audiences. Emma said a lot of their ‘easier’ books were popular with people learning English as a second language, while their sensory books had proven popular in preschool classes.

“That was amazing. But I've had the luxury of being able to go into different classrooms with the ranges of books and work with the young people that the books are for. And honestly, it's been such a rewarding experience to see young people scan QR codes, watch signing videos, listen to the book if they don't want to read it, [and] immerse themselves in sensory adventures.”

One of their sensory books was about autumn, she continued, “and they were touching pumpkins and touching leaves and having water sprayed at them to feel like rain. They just really loved it. And to just see that enjoyment was just incredible”. 

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“I think everybody, in my opinion, should be able to enter an imaginary world of reading,” she added. “There are so many stories to be told, lots of amazing books have been written… there's so many books that have really shaped our history; they've shaped how we see the world, and they might have shaped the way somebody sees something on a personal level.”

Emma said there were many books that she had read that she had really connected with, finding something in them that rang true to her. “I think to take that away from somebody because they struggle to read at a certain level is really difficult. 

“Books can help people to develop and learn, but they can also be great for mindfulness, great for relaxation, great for so many different things,” she continued. “And I just think that being able to access a book in whichever format best suits that person is magical, and everyone should be able to have the choice to read a book in the way that best suits them.”

To learn more about Every Cherry and the catalogue of books it currently has available across its different accessible formats, you can visit the publisher’s website online here.