Excting new children's book launched by young golf star and Kildare journalist

A new children’s book series, Fairways and Fantasy, has been released. The story was inspired by 10 year-old and (twice) World Championship winning golfer Ella Kenny and was written by Leinster Leader journalist Daragh Nolan and illustrated by Tara McDonnell. 

The first book will be launched on Saturday, December 14 at Solas Eco Garden Centre, Portarlington between 11am and 2pm. All are invited to come and meet those involved in the book and receive a signed copy. The first book, entitled Fairways and Fantasy: The Power, follows Ella on a time-travelling adventure as her life is transformed by a magical golf club in this brilliant book aimed at six and older readers. The proceeds of the book will go to two chosen charities, Make-A-Wish Ireland and Barnardos.

If you can't make the launch, you can pick up your copy of the book at fairwaysandfantasy.com

The project got underway 18 months ago when Ella’s father, James, approached Daragh following an interview for the paper about Ella’s recent golfing success.

“We talked about the idea of a book on the way to my golf competitions. I was watching Henry Danger at the time, a show about a superhero. It was two or three years ago and I wanted to be a superhero in a book,” Ella explained.

The cover of Fairways and Fantasy: The Power

The spawn of the idea for Ella’s magic club was the real-life golfer's ability to drive the ball brilliantly and often further than her competitors. What began as hitting a ball other worldly distances evolved into a time-travelling adventure.

After many concepts and iterations ranging from lightning in a bottle to a scientist father with a lab in the basement, the first story began to take shape as Ella’s ideas were honed. The recently launched book is the first in a planned series of five and centres around the discovery of Ella’s powers.

“It was very much just an idea three years ago, but I’d like to live my life with the least amount of regrets possible. Daragh was interested, which was one of the hardest parts of finding someone to actually write the books and Tara (the illustrator) sort of fell into my lap. Things just began to happen then,” James explained.

“There would be an idea for one of the books or some element of the story and Daragh would go off and write it and come back to us. Myself, Ella and Ethan would be driving in the car to golf or a competition and someone would be reading it out. That was our process.”

Daragh added, “The first book is the hardest because you have to build this whole world for the reader while telling an exciting story. Especially when it comes to any element of magic or time-travel, we had to make sure that the rules that were established are meticulously followed in the story itself.”

The other half of the children’s books' contents came from James’ cousin Tara McDonnell, who provided the superb illustrations for the Fairways and Fantasy series.

“Tara is a really talented artist and we found this out many years ago in Ella’s granny’s house. We wanted to do something to make the garage look a bit nicer, where Ella had her golf simulator, and Tara did this incredible mural across the wall in only a few days. She did a couple of mock up sketches for the book, we thought they were really good and that was that. So between Tara, Ella and Daragh we had a good thing going,” James said.

The book launch will take place Solas Eco Garden Centre, a location beside one of the series' partners TekEir, the electronics shop who are distributing the book.

James explained, “As the book was progressing, I was thinking about how we were going to sell it and who was going to look after these books and distribute them. Peter Walsh, who owns TekEir, is a friend of mine and when I told him what we were doing, especially the charity aspect, he said they could take care of it. They have the social media handles ready, so he and his team have been brilliant. Otherwise it would have been myself, Ella and Daragh with 2,000 books trying to post them out.”

However, Ella isn’t the only member of the family to appear in the books with her younger brother Ethan also prominently featuring.

“Daragh took the idea of adding Ethan in and ran with it in terms of making him one of the major sources of humour throughout the stories. He was the comic relief and Ella’s partner in these adventures,” James said.

Their story will evolve across the five-book series that the group are targeting with Ella and Ethan going everywhere from to the zoo to the 16th century.

As well as the thrilling time-travelling stories, each book contains a golf lesson and puzzle that were put together by the star young golfer herself to help readers and budding golfers alike with their game.

The book is available at fairwaysandfantasy.com and is officially launching on Saturday, December 14 at Solas Eco Garden Centre, Portarlington between 11am and 2pm.