2024 Paris Paralympics: Halifax's Hannah Cockroft inspires young disabled girl in new children’s book

The Girl in the Mirror: Isobel's Dream, covers the topic of school bullying, and how schoolchildren should deal with it. It also touches on subjects of friendship, honesty, loyalty and relationships between young family members and their elders.

Isobel, the young disabled girl in the story idolises Hannah Cockroft, and the story centres around her friends trying to raise enough money to buy Isobel a racing wheelchair.

Author James Walker is a retired engineer who spent the early part of his career as a patternmaker, making models (patterns) in wood used to make castings of, amongst other things, propellers for the shipbuilding industry.

He spent the latter part of his career supervising the building of aircraft undercarriages, most notably for the Hawk aircraft as flown by the Red Arrows.

James said: “My main criteria in writing children’s books are honesty, loyalty, friendship and, most importantly, anti-bullying of school pupils.

"I was halfway through writing this book when, cycling towards a school one day I had to stop at a zebra crossing as a pupil in a wheelchair made her way across.

"As she reached the other side three noisy pupils thought it funny to turn her wheelchair round the other way, something which she was really annoyed at.

"Being a fan of the great British wheelchair cyclist, Hannah Cockroft, I then decided to include a disabled girl, who I call Isobel, in this, the sequel to my first book, and she will be a fan of Hannah’s, too.

"Isobel would dearly love to have an Invacare Top End Eliminator OSR Racing Wheelchair, the sort Hannah used when winning Olympic gold medals, and the two main protagonists, Horla and Lucy, along with Jack Russell, Pip, go on a talent show in an attempt to win the money to buy it for her.”

The Girl in the Mirror: Isobel's Dream is due to be published on September 28.

Hannah kicks off her Paralympic campaign on Saturday in the Women’s 100m T34.