Hi.

Wonderful to have you here. I've been so excited about this, enormously excited about this. Been telling everyone about it. I obviously had the great privilege of talking to you a while back when you were you'd written the book you were looking for. I am I'm genuinely so excited about this. Right. I I tell us about the book. Well.

I seem to be in the wrong place on the screen. I'm gonna move myself. There we go. That's better. Yeah. So thank you so much for inviting me to read Piff and the Puffle. It's been a long, long journey for me, and it's just wonderful to be part of this event because I've been looking at the chat, and some of the people have been saying things like, it's actually the best conference they've ever been to, and I just think that's amazing. So I'm gonna just tell you a little bit about me and why I wrote the book. My story can be encapsulated in three different words, I think, and it's misdiagnosis, misunderstood, and mishaps. And at school, I was constantly being told off. I was too emotional, too noisy.

Too this, too that. I was just too everything, and nobody knew about ADHD. And then as an adult, I was given medication and nothing worked. And then I the things that really helped me were creativity. So I was lucky enough to go to art college where, in fact, interestingly enough, we've already had a fantastic animation film on earlier. I made animation films. And then I trained as a a scriptwriter, and I learned that actually what I really liked doing was telling stories with pictures. And so that's what led to me writing picture books. And I've been writing picture books for about seven years. And during the course of writing these picture books, I was lucky enough to get a diagnosis before the surge of people getting diagnosis.

In the NHS. And a lot of support, I've had coaching, which thinking about the things that have just been said in the last session, really, really important. Noise canceling headphones, sitting in a quiet place. I find I have a great need to talk to people. So for me, to working with a team, and I've had a fantastic team helping me create PIFF, it's really important to get, you know, to just get things done in the best way possible. And I love what's already been said about how can we be our best selves. And I realized that I'm only now learning to be my best self now that I've got my diagnosis because it helps me understand how my brain works.

And that then helps me to be able to communicate to other people about how best to work with me, how I work best with them. And the reason why I particularly wrote PIFF was because I couldn't see any books out there for young children with characters that had ADHD, female characters with ADHD, because as has already been just said in the last session, girls are underdiagnosed. Women are underdiagnosed. In fact, a lot of women are finding they're getting diagnosed maybe because they've had children who've been diagnosed or because it's been mixed with sort of symptoms of menopause and things like that. In my case, it was that I worked with two young boys that had such fantastic support, and I could see that they had sensory issues.

They got sensory overload, and that was really key to me understanding a little bit more about ADHD. So the character Piff in my story, Piff in the puffer, there's a character that finds it difficult to regulate herself, which is a really common symptom of ADHD, but it's very underdiagnosed or under sort of, you know, sort of ignored in a way, I think. And so that's why I wrote the story. But I also want it to be a fun story, you know, that children can really enjoy, all children, not just children that have got ADHD. And I just wanted to introduce you to the main character. There we are. I hope you can see her.

I'm not sure where is blurred. If you put it in front of your head, I think it'll show. There. There you go. Perfect. Can you see Yeah. We can see it. Made specially for me. So, yeah, PIFF, I love PIFF.

PIFF goes everywhere with me now. So and many of my friends are even saying, I'm all in a puffle, which is kind of fun. I just wanted to thank there's lots of people, my friends watching now, which I'm so grateful that they're making the time to watch me, but also my fabulous team who put up with me having to talk things through a lot and having lots and lots of Zoom calls to make sense of things. Jill, the illustrator, who's done a fantastic job with the illustrations. Ness, my designer. Ruth, the editor. Natasha, another editor. And also, the two fantastic website people who've helped me create my website. And, again, people who've understood how it is to work with somebody with ADHD.

And, you know, because I do think that one of the things that we have, which is fantastic, is that we're really creative.

So, yeah, think about the strengths, not the weaknesses is my point. It's been a well, it's been a wonderful journey. And, like and this is this is the launch. Right? This is the launch of the book. This is the launch. The book is available from today. Today is the day, and and we should yeah. To coincide with this, this is this is the this is it. And I think it is. It's a big deal that we don't, like, have ADHD for for children with ADHD. They're they're just there isn't a plethora of children's books for them. It's It's important to be representative to have characters like, know, to represent you. It is a big deal. And I'm very I'm.

Hopefully I don't know you've been able to follow along with things, I've been training this for some time. I've been very, very excited about it indeed. I have not watched so you've recorded yourself. We've got a a video of you reading the book. This is the first reading. First time out and it's a huge deal. I'm very very excited.

I'm nervous. Oh, well, Christine's seen it, and she loved it. So, hopefully, fingers crossed. And.

Then I've just got to do this, like, do donate people. Right? Like, so this is a this is a entire thing. It's a charity thing. So it's been wonderfully kind to to time this with this. It's partly to obviously introduce it to all audiences, also to support the conference to help it get that get that traction. Do you consider donating? Everyone's giving their time free. Sarah's given given her time free. She keeps trying to offer us signed books to give out and and it's just trying to support in every which way. I've been talking to Sarah for for for months now and she is wonderful, genuinely wonderful. And I'm very very excited about it. So do donate. Go to globaladhd.com and click donate.

Pith in a puffle written by Sarah Lavelle and illustrated by Jill White. Splash, sir Katisha comes to town. Epic, sensational trapeze, clowns, and much more. The first time Piff went to the fishy circus, she laughed and laughed and laughed until her tummy ache. And it was at that moment Piff knew the circus was the life for her. But before she could stop laughing, Piff lost control, knocking over the fishy crowd and bumping into Coco the clown. Piff took a deep breath and unpuffled slowly. Please, can I join the circus? She asked. You'll have to ask madam Kanisha, the ringmaster Coco said. What is the name of your act? Madam Kanisha boomed. I don't have one, Piff said. Madam Kanisha frowned. Well then, we better find you one quickly.

Our next show is tonight. Otto swam past juggling jauntily. Can I have a go? Asked. But as she tried to juggle the hermit crabs with her fins, Piff got all in a puffle. Munch. Munch. Ouch. The angry little crabs nipped, and Piff dropped them. Madam Catisha scowled and shook her head. No. No. No. The swinging swirlies soared effort effortlessly on the trapeze. Can I try? Piff asked. But as she reached the top of the tower, Piff got all in a puffle. Donk. Piff tumbled into the slimy seaweed. Tut. Tut. Tut. Madame Katisha tapped her cane. Next, Piff tried taming the lionfish and spinning the seashells on eels. She tried to do cartwheels and somersaults with the starfish acrobats. Then something caught her eye.

Luna, the cannonball crustacean, was firing spider crabs into the air. This might be the act for me, thought Piff. No juggling, somersaults, or swinging in the air. On went the helmet, and she squeezed her tummy into the cannon. Luna began the countdown. Three, two. Piff shook. She trembled. She closed her eyes and held her breath. She tried really hard not to puffle, but one blast off, cried Luna. Help, Biff cried. I'm stuck. Madame Catisha frowned. This will never do. With her enormous claws, Luna wiggled and jiggled Piff out. She landed in a deep, dark corner. There simply wasn't an act for her. Her dream of joining the fishy circus was over. Coco the clownfish swam past. Yahoo.

Why are you hiding in there? She called. I thought you wanted to be in the circus. I'm no good at anything, Piff whimpered. I keep getting all in a puffle. When I first started, I used to be nervous too, Coco said. Come and watch us rehearse, and it might make you chuckle, and you can't be having a good giggle. Laugh as she watched the clownfish clan practice their act. Oh, no. It's happening again. I can't stop, she cried. She held her breath, and Piff bumped into a rehearsing spider crab, bounced onto the clownfish seesaw, and catapulted Coco right up into the air. Wee. But this time, her puffle made everyone giggle until their tummies hurt. Eden, madam Keticia chuckled. That evening, madam Keticia announced.

We are proud to present our new act, the clownfish clan and piff in a puffle. Coco smiled at Piff. You're part of our circus family now, and Piff got all in a puffle. Splash, circus spectacular sells out. Piff, the new circus sea sensation astounds crowds. Crowds have been roaring with laughter and cheering for more night after night. Don't miss it. The end.

Absolutely wonderful. Just a delight. Just a delight. How does it feel? How does it feel having it out? How does it feel having it out? Having it's in Amazon, having it read out in front of our live audience?

Well, I just hope somebody gets something from it. Either they just enjoyed it as a little story and they like the illustrations or, you know, it's inspiring somebody because, you know, this is a book this is a story that I would have liked to have read when I was a child. And then when I started to look around, because I was already writing pitch books, I didn't see anything like this. And I thought, actually and then I just came up with the idea. And the thing about a fish is that everybody can identify with an animal in a way when you've got a human, it's not quite so easy because if they're a boy or a girl or whatever else like that. But it's just, you know, I some of the most memorable books I have at home are picture books.

And to me, they're just so special, but I think we need to get to our children younger. You know? On average, girls are getting diagnosed at 12, and boys are getting diagnosed at seven. Not all, but, you know, they're three times more likely to get diagnosed. And, you know, these are precious years where girls might be getting negative messages. And what we need to be doing is giving people positive messages about themselves so that they can be, as has already been said, the best version of myself. And that is what I aim to be on a daily basis. It's the best version. And Piff is being the best version of herself by making people laugh.

It's wonderful. And I'd answer that. It's a perfect moment to end on. And absolutely, yes. We're we're like, it's wonderful. And I'm thrilled. Good luck with it. We've if people go to the schedule, you'll find the the Amazon link there. So at globaladhd.com and whilst you're there, maybe you don't. And it's as we've said, this is a you know, we're running well, it's being organized by charities and everyone's giving their time support for free and thank you for doing doing so. And it's wonderful. I think it's an important thing to have this in this out there for for kids. So really excited. Right. I have to say goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you so much. Really, really excited. Thank.

You. It's wonderful. And, yeah, I think it really is genuinely wonderful.