Seven-year-old boy becomes published author

Bertie and his mum, Lauren, came up with the idea while he was off school due to illness in 2022

A seven-year-old boy from Shropshire has just had his first book published - about an ogre who loves to do yoga.

The idea formed in 2022, when Bertie Hartshorn, from Shrewsbury, had time off school due to illness.

The then four-year-old and his mother, Lauren, fed up with playing board games to pass the time, created the basis for Bogre The Ogre Who Really Loves Yoga.

"We kind of started speaking about writing a story just as a project to keep us busy and discussed how a story might look," said Lauren.

"We spoke about some of the things that might go wrong at school, and one of those was that you might like different things to your friends."

The story follows Bogre, who wants to share his passion with his friends but discovers that they do not like it as much as he does.

It aims to show children that you do not have to be exactly the same to be friends.

Bertie and his brother, Ralph, with a copy of the book

The concept was inspired by the fact that Bertie likes Pokémon, while his friends are not so keen.

"He's [Bogre] got two friends, and they like different things; one likes climbing and one likes bouncing," said Bertie, who has a younger brother, Ralph.

"I came up with most of the ideas.

"I'm not that good at it [yoga]... I am quite good at gymnastics as well, though, but I prefer stretching."

Lauren said after coming up with the idea, they began emailing publishers to see if the book would get picked up.

In 2023, they received interest from Pegasus Publishers and signed a contract in February 2024.

Bertie was heavily involved in discussions about writing, planning and illustrations.

"I got to choose the pictures," he said.

The story was published at the end of January.

"It was a really exciting thing to be able to... finally see this real book that just came from me, and you sat at the kitchen table, a bit bored," said Lauren.

Bertie has a copy in his bedroom and has ambitions to write more in the future.

"I've already thought of an idea of what book I should do next," he said.