Celebrating World Book Day at Amaze

This World Book Day, Amaze is celebrating more than just books. We’re celebrating the power of stories to connect us, comfort us and bring our community together – values that sit at the heart of everything we do at Amaze.

Three members of our team – Boo Vaughan, Ros Cook and Darren Walker – share what makes them proud to work here, how reading has shaped their lives, and their hopes for our upcoming book-themed public art event, The Story Trail.

What makes you proud to work at Amaze?

For Boo, enjoyment comes from hearing the feedback from families. In what she describes as “a very difficult climate,” hearing that the support from Amaze makes a real difference to families means the world.

Ros has worked at Amaze for 25 years and describes how the organisation is “tightly bound into the SEND community”. For her this is a sustained passion to keep striving to make a difference for young people and children, and their parent carers.

Darren highlights the importance of safe spaces – particularly for new fathers of children with SEND who may be navigating unexpected emotions following a diagnosis. Being able to bring fathers together, to talk openly with others who understand the life changes they are experiencing, is something he feels deeply proud to be part of.

What is your favourite book?

Boo’s current favourite is What You Are Looking For Is in the Library – a gentle and uplifting novel that perfectly captures the quiet magic books can hold.

Ros finds it impossible to choose just one. If pressed, she named Middlemarch by George Eliot. But more recently, she’s been enjoying The Café at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please with her grandson – a picture book featuring a brilliant ogre and a thoughtful story about dreams, flexibility and accepting help.

Darren, meanwhile, enjoys thrillers by Peter James and Tom Clancy, alongside books on mindfulness and mental wellbeing.

How important was reading growing up and how has it impacted your adult life?

Both for Boo and Ros, reading was an escape as a child, as Boo describes a way of understanding the world around her. Darren sees reading as a fundamental life skill and says, “when you read a book you enlarge your imagination, a whole new world as it were, and there are no boundaries to this.”

As adults their early relationship with reading still resonates. Boo values the way that books help her slow down. Ros describes herself as a compulsive reader, similarly books help her switch off and give her a way to learn about other places and diversity of human experience.

Darren echoes this sense of possibility, and says that reading gives him the confidence to say, “what if?” and “can I do this?”

Sit with us

This September, during the National Year of Reading, Amaze is excited to bring The Story Trail to the streets of Brighton – a public art trail featuring bench sculptures that resemble open books.

Boo hopes the trail will encourage more people to rediscover the value of books. Ros is especially excited at how it brings together stories and awareness of Amaze. Her hope is that The Story Trail will bring people together – not only for people to read books but creating their own too.

Darren hopes the trail will break new boundaries with a truly inclusive activity that brings together the wider community with families who have experience with SEND and disabilities. Above all, he hopes it will unify families, spark curiosity and create opportunities for understanding as well as fun.

“Stories are part of how human beings make sense of the world and themselves. So, I hope The Story Trail brings people together to celebrate books and stories, reading them and creating their own too.” – Ros

We invite the whole community to #SitWithUs this autumn – click here find out more about The Story Trail and opportunities to get involved.