Families come in all shapes
Lina has a Daddy and a Papa. Other children have one parent, two mums, grandparents, or a home that looks different again — and every one is ordinary and full of love.
About Jack d’Bourg
I’m a British children’s author living in the French mountains with my family, and I write and independently publish magical picture books for young children — inspired by family life, curiosity, bedtime questions, big feelings, two‑dad families, and our move from London to France.
How it started
It began at home
It began at home, partly out of a quiet frustration. As a parent, I couldn’t easily find picture books that reflected a family like ours, with a Daddy and a Papa — so I started writing the ones I couldn’t find. I wanted my daughter’s world to be on the page from the very start, so that questions about being different feel ordinary rather than a surprise. A family doesn’t have to match the usual picture to be every bit as normal.
I’ve written six books for her now, and the first two — Lina and the Magic Paintbrush Surprise and Lina and the Time‑Travel Elephant — are published and on Amazon. She inspires the questions, the emotions and the little moments; then I turn them into magical adventures for Lina. The best ideas almost always come from her latest question.
“Children, it turns out, are excellent creative directors.”
How I write
It starts with something real
The stories never begin with a plot. They begin with something real — a feeling, a question, a small thing my daughter said or did — and I grow it into one of Lina’s adventures.
“I was a bit scared, and I could feel my heart going baboom baboom baboom.”
That was her one evening, describing what fear felt like inside her body — tapping out the beat with her hand. It became a gentle story about big feelings, and the quiet ways they settle.
Other sparks are smaller and happier. She loves to draw and paint, and often paints what she can’t quite put into words yet — that’s where Lina and the Magic Paintbrush Surprise began. When she wondered how a mammoth and an elephant could be different, that curiosity grew into Lina and the Time‑Travel Elephant. And whenever something feels too big, we still talk about taking one small, brave step.
What the books are really about
More than a bedtime story
Every Lina story is a proper adventure first — but I want each one to do a little quiet work, too. Above all, the books say something simple: there’s no single way to be a child, a family or a person, and difference is something to enjoy rather than to fix. Across the series, they gently explore:
Being your own person
We each have our own mind and our own ways. There’s no such thing as ‘normal’ — just lots of different ways of being you.
A wider, different world
Cultures and communities around the world live, speak and celebrate differently — something to be curious about, not wary of.
Naming big feelings
That every emotion is okay — with gentle, practical ways through the hard ones.
Finding a voice
Speaking up, asking questions, and making brave choices, however small.
Friendship and kindness
Making friends, mending squabbles, and noticing how other people feel.
Room for shy hearts
Characters who start out unsure and slowly find their place and their voice.
Growing up between languages
English, French and German woven gently into the world of the books.
Underneath runs a thread of curiosity — about mammoths, weather, time and how the world works — and small, calm moments to pause on along the way.
Why a pen name
Inspired by real life — but not a memoir
I write under a pen name because the stories are inspired by real life, but they’re not a family memoir. Lina is her own little character, with her own adventures, worries, questions and brave little steps.
The books aren’t about difference in a loud or lesson‑like way. They’re simply stories where Lina has Daddy and Papa, where love is ordinary, and where adventure begins with a question, a worry, a muddy path, a rainy window, or a favourite toy.
From city to mountains
London, then the Bugey hills
We moved from London to rural mountain life in France — to the Plateau d’Hauteville, in the Bugey hills of eastern France. It’s a quiet landscape of limestone ridges, pine woods and golden‑hour meadows that finds its way into nearly every page I make.
City life and countryside life can feel like different worlds, especially for a young child — and out here the countryside is wonderfully alive. That sense of wonder runs right through the Lina books, where nature, animals and weather become magic, and new languages weave into everyday life.
horses, cows, goats, deer and foxes for neighbours • birdsong from first light • waterfalls, open green and mountains rolling to the horizon
Something I’m building
Keeping British English
Since the move, I’ve been helping my daughter with her English reading and writing — and I’m starting to turn some of that into print, too. Real books still matter, especially when so many online resources lean heavily towards American English.
I’d like her, and other children like her, to keep their British English — so I’m working on printed, screen‑free reading and activity materials for families learning English at home.
The books
Two Lina books, with more on the way
The first two Lina books are live in English now. French editions are following — the first translated with help from my father‑in‑law — and a German edition is planned. There are four more written, waiting their turn.
If you read one, an honest review helps more than you’d think — and shares are always welcome.
Warm stories, real feelings, magical adventures — and books where more children can see a little piece of their world on the page.
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