Splash!

‘Splash!’ weaves a 10,000-year-old tale that begins in a bone-dry cave in the remote southwest corner of Egypt, winds its way through ancient Greece and Rome, flows mostly underground through the Dark and Middle Ages, and then re-emerges in the wake of the Renaissance before ending on the runway of the Tokyo Olympics. But swimming is also about more than feats of aquatic endurance or the terror of the bottomless deep. Its history offers a multi-tiered tour through religion, fashion low and high, architecture, sanitation and public health, colonialism, segregation and integration, sexism, sexiness, guts, glory and much, much more. Unique and compulsive, ‘Splash!’ sweeps across the whole of humankind’s swimming history, with great wit and humour.

Author: Cashmore, Claire, Davey, Sharon

Picture books: character books

Published on 10 June 2021 by Harpercollins Publishers (Farshore) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 32 pages
275 x 245 | 200g

Claire Cashmore, MBE and Paralympic gold medallist, was born without a left forearm but she never let being different stand in the way of her big dreams. Splash is based on Claires real-life experience: this gold-medal-winning swimmer really was scared of water until one day, everything changed!

These are Claires big sisters.

They call her Bear and ruffle her hair.

And whatever Claires sisters can do,

Claire can do too

But there is one thing Claire won’t do The water in the swimming pool makes her feel squirmy inside. Follow her sisters? No thank you! Not today?

Can Claire conquer her fears? Can she set foot in the water and what will happen if she does?

Perfect for fans of What Happened to You? by James Catchpole and Karen George.

GuardianBook of the Month (26th June 2021)

Exuberant . . . full of the joys of swimming. The heroine has a limb difference, understatedly conveyed in both text and pictures, while the chief focus of the story is fun, perseverance and supportive family love Imogen Russell Williams, Guardian

Splash features a brilliantly bold heroine, who happens to be differently abled, and brims with fun, positivity and Claire Cashmores inspirational growth mindset message.