Therapeutic Recreation students raise awareness through self-published book

Posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2022

The cover of Ollie's Telescope which showcases Blanchard's beautiful illustrations. The illustration features a cartoon style galaxy with fluorescent colours in which the main character Ollie is standing on top of a planet with his black dog wearing a red shirt and squinting to look out of a telescope.

The cover of Ollie’s Telescope which showcases Blanchard’s beautiful illustrations.

Writing and illustrating a children’s book was never a fated endeavor for Samantha Smadella and Kaitlyn Blanchard but when they stumbled upon a story that needed to be told, the pair immediately put pen to paper to take on the challenge.

Smadella and Blanchard are both students of the Therapeutic Recreation program, a healthcare profession that deals with five domains of recreation and leisure: physical, emotional, cognitive, social and spiritual. Smadella explains that recreation therapy takes shape in a variety of ways in different spaces — from children’s palliative care to long-term care for the elderly.

“Therapeutic recreation helps provide meaning to peoples’ lives,” says Smadella. “It touches on all the things that make us human outside of the menial day to day tasks.”

In keeping with her caring nature, Smadella launched Localove, a product subscription box that would supplement the income of local businesses and raise funds for non-profits and individuals in need during the pandemic.

“One month I worked with the Snow Angels for CHEO, a fundraiser that supports children’s oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO),” says Smadella. “Roland Ten Holden, the fundraiser’s Director, connected me with Dawn Pickering — whose son had been diagnosed with Lymphoma — and she asked if I could create a special box for children fighting cancer.”

Smadella quickly learnt about Pickering’s son, Ollie, who would become the namesake and inspiration for Ollie’s Telescope. Unfortunately, Ollie’s cancer had metastasized to his brain, causing severe vision loss. But Ollie’s mom was adamant that anything he wanted to do, she’d find a way for him to do it — which Smadella explains is the ethos of recreation therapy. Ollie has been involved in everything from skateboarding to karate.

“I was exploring options for my term project, and after speaking with Pickering and hearing Ollie’s story, I knew that I wanted to do something to honour this amazing kid,” says Smadella. “Ollie’s enthusiasm, adaptability and perseverance is what Therapeutic Recreation is all about.”

Smadella casually told Pickering that Ollie should have a book or movie written about him and then it dawned on her that she could in fact make that happen. Some preliminary research revealed that there wasn’t much in the way of similar children’s books, so with the green light from her professors and input from Ollie’s mother, Smadella quickly got to work compiling their story.

“Once I started writing, I reached out to Blanchard — we’d been really good friends throughout the Therapeutic Recreation program and I knew that she was an amazing artist,” says Smadella.

Blanchard immediately took to the idea as well and began putting pen to paper to help Smadella communicate Ollie’s story through beautiful illustrations.

“Each page has these brilliant illustrations with image descriptions so that children who are visually impaired can enjoy the book as well,” says Smadella. “I brought a copy of the book into Roger Neilson House, where I do my student placement, and the children are drawn toward the designs on the cover — I love that it can be read to children of all abilities”

Ollie’s Telescope follows a boy who loses his sight while undergoing cancer treatments and tackles his new obstacles with courage and resilience, learning new ways to accomplish his goals. Like the real Ollie, the character mourns the loss of his passion, astronomy, but rediscovers the world through music. With a friend from the oncology unit, he realizes that he can accomplish his passions by changing his approach. The heartwarming story encourages children experiencing life-altering injury or illness by introducing them to accessible recreation.

“You don’t really see a lot of books about people with disabilities in general so we hope that this can provide a bit more representation for adults and children alike,” says Blanchard. “Hopefully this book can also shed light on recreation therapy and its benefits.”

For Blanchard, her work on this book was therapeutic as well.

“Art is my de-stress — it’s the first thing I do when I’m feeling overwhelmed,” says Blanchard. “I’ve done it my entire life and I know I want to be able to include art in the therapeutic recreation services I provide in the future because it’s helped me so much, especially with my mental health and self-expression.”

To date, roughly 100 copies of Ollie’s Telescope have been sold with a goal to sell 200 books for the first release. All proceeds from the book will be donated to CHEO oncology (formerly Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Support Programs, which amalgamated with CHEO in June). If you’re interested in supporting Smadella, Blanchard and of course Ollie, you can purchase the book here: https://www.yabadabatr.com/product-page/ollie-s-telescope


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