The Real Story - Inspiration Behind 'Hannah Learns About Love'

Hannah Learns About Love is close to home. Years ago, I met a little girl whose parents were absent. She was brought up by her grandparents, a set of loving, selfless and giving grandparents. They were not well-off. They struggled to make ends meet sometimes. This little girl was teased at in school for not having a father, for looking different from everyone, for not having a bicycle, for not having birthday parties.

I remember a conversation I had with her which struck something deep within me. She looked at me and told me that she thought she was poor. She was convinced. She was 10.

I looked at this bright little girl who was kind, independent, funny, intelligent and beautiful. And I wrote this story because it is important that she knows one day that she has always been rich. Rich with the most important things. She is blessed.  I remember learning that when she was a toddler, sometimes her grandpa had to drive a taxi on longer shifts to earn enough for milk powder and more. Quietly, but so lovingly.

Hannah Learns About Love is thus about richness and blessedness that is not material. It is about pausing to appreciate the unsaid, the quiet and the often undermined. It is our hope that in sharing this story with children, families come together on a deeper level, that families and children grow closer-knitted whilst also reaching out in kindness and love to children who may indeed have less than they do, materially speaking. To seek similarities rather than differences. To embrace rather than to alienate. To love, rather than to exclude.