Former BBC Children’s executive Stuart Rowson has published his debut children’s book, Izzy and the Tumble Thunder.
Rowson is creating a trilogy of adventure novels, the first of which is on sale now.
The books portray the challenges, worries and anxieties that children, especially young girls, face growing up these days with the main character Izzy, named after and inspired by his daughter, showing how to successfully overcome them.
The series has been snapped up by new publisher Whalebone, a subsidiary of The Book Writers Resource.
Rowson has spent more than 20 years in the media, and worked for a decade at the BBC in MediaCityUK.
As head of discovery at BBC Children’s, he led the digital transformation of Newsround and oversaw the relaunch of the Children’s iPlayer, as well as the digital and social output of the department – from CBeebies apps to TikTok and YouTube strategies. He also oversaw the team that delivered Bedtime Stories, which featured a range of celebrities including Tom Hardy and Isla Fisher.
Prior to that he spent several years at BBC Sport leading on the digital and social coverage of some of the world’s biggest sporting events, from London Olympics 2012 to Wimbledon and the football World Cup in Brazil.
Since leaving the BBC, Rowson has run his own successful media company focused on kids and younger audiences and counts Chelsea FC, Birmingham 2022, British Cycling and industry-leading production company Sunset & Vine among his clients.
The coming-of-age story focuses on a young girl called Izzy, who lives with her mum in a clock shop in London, plagued by visions of her missing dad.
After discovering a magical time-travelling device on her 13th birthday, called a Tumble Thunder, and a note she is convinced is from her dad, she must travel back through history to complete the quest to find him and realise her own destiny – all the while being hunted by an evil character from the future called the Time Shadow.
Rowson said: “It has been a lifelong ambition of mine to write a novel as I’ve always loved writing, but my main inspiration came after reading all seven of the Harry Potter books to my daughter at bedtime over the course of three years.
“The idea was to write a book to give to my daughter for her 13th birthday, so I was keen to ensure it did two things: deliver a strong female character who was an anti-hero in the modern world and to give young girls a role model who wasn’t worried about fitting in or what she looked like in a selfie. My hope is that it teaches children to stand up for themselves and others and to be happy being themselves.”
The sequel, Izzy and the Time Shadow, is already in the works and will be launched in 2023. Part three of the trilogy will be launched after that.
Izzy and the Tumble Thunder is available on Amazon now.
