The Art of the Dart: Donal the Dart makes his debut in new Children’s book
Children’s author Ken Doyle

The Art of the Dart: Donal the Dart makes his debut in new Children’s book

The humorous adventures of a DART called Donal are catalogued in the debut book of children’s author Ken Doyle.

Ken, who divides his time between Knocklyon and London with his work as a criminal-law specialist, decided to take the leap into writing a children’s book after seeing his young son’s fascination with trains.

‘Donal the DART’ is the first in a wider series of ‘DART Friends’ books that Ken is planning to write, with the picture story books aimed at children aged between three and eight.

Ken told The Echo about how writing children’s books gives him a reprieve from the stresses of his day job, why he decided to include the Irish language in the book, and what he hopes young readers will take away from it.

Your background is in criminal law, does being a children’s author give you a release from the stresses of your career?

Writing ‘Donal the DART’ was a world away from my day job.

I work in the often murky and dark world of crime, practicing criminal law.

As a criminal-law specialist, I spend my working days in court-rooms dealing with very serious cases involving terrorism, homicide, and business and financial crimes. It can often be very stressful indeed.

It can also impact upon your mental health, dealing with serious matters constantly and interacting with victims and witnesses of crimes.

Writing my children’s picture story book gave me the opportunity to focus on much lighter subject matter.

Channelling your inner child – something every children’s picture story-book author must inevitably do – allows one to let go completely of one’s day-to-day life and to instead

let the imagination and mind run free.

Is ‘Donal the DART’ your first children’s book?

Yes, ‘Donal the DART’ is my first commercially available children’s picture story book.

I wrote the story for my young son who loves trains – engines, cartoons, stories and everything in between.

‘Donal the DART’ is also my first book in my ‘DART Friends’ series of books.

I am currently writing the second book in the series in which we find Donal the DART coming to the rescue of a VIP who needs assistance travelling to a very important event.

The book is written in English and Irish. Why did you feel it was important to ensure the book was bilingual?

One of the other characters in ‘Donal the DART’, called Seán the DART, speaks as Gaeilge.

The character has a minor role in the overall story but the character is the conduit through which I introduce the Irish language into the book.

At the end of the book, I have also included a ‘Learn to Speak Irish with Seán the DART’ page that includes some basic Irish phrases, together with guidance on how to pronounce the Irish words and phrases.

I hope it will assist little ones in learning some very basic Irish words and phrases to use in their day-to-day lives.

Irish is one of 12 languages in the EU at most risk of extinction, according to language learning platform Busuu.

Regrettably, Irish was not a subject I excelled at in school but nonetheless, I never lost my love for the language and the desire to share it with my own child and others.

To this day I will, wherever possible, incorporate some basic Irish phrases into social interactions with people.

Why in particular did you choose to write ‘Donal the DART’?

I wrote the story for my young son, who loves trains.

When I was living and working in Dublin full-time, I frequently travelled on the DART and had always thought that the iconic shape of the trains ideally lent themselves to caricature.

To be honest, I am incredibly surprised that I am the first person to have constructed a children’s picture story around the DART trains and the network.

The DART trains and network were, in my view, always ripe for a platform like my book.

When my little boy started developing an interest in trains and began watching short videos of DART trains on YouTube I just wanted to write stories for him featuring the trains as characters in stories.

What impact do you hope the book will have on its young readers?

I hope children will love reading my funny picture book, which teaches them that if you try to do things too quickly, you will often make mistakes.

I hope that the book will introduce children to basic Irish language skills.

Above all, I hope that children will fall in love with Donal the DART and be excited to read other books in the series.

I love initiatives such as the ‘World Book Day’.

Whilst I can only aspire to having my book featured as part of the ‘World Book Day’ initiative, I commit to providing a complimentary copy of my book ‘Donal the DART’ to any child who would wish to own a copy for themselves but for whom the necessary price tag of the book is too great.

Any child who wishes me to send them a copy should contact me through their local library and I will send a copy of ‘Donal the DART’ to them.

Obviously, I cannot accommodate every single request that I might receive but I will certainly honour requests from children with a genuine need and interest in my book.

‘Donal the DART’ is available for purchase now at bookdepository.com.

For further information follow @DonalTheDART on Instagram.

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