Holly Marlow & Nick Kizirnis

Holly Marlow is a British author and parent to both biological and adopted children. Holly strives for a gentle/therapeutic parenting style and this has led her to create stories to help children to understand some of the emotional and practical complexities of foster care, kinship care and adoption.

Holly enjoys spending time with her family, travelling (especially searching for chameleons, geckos and snakes in the wild parts of Africa) and learning foreign languages. Holly has fibromyalgia and has spent a lot of time trying to raise awareness of the chronic pain condition, giving presentations in schools and universities. Holly also enjoys baking and gardening, and is terrible at both.

Holly’s first book, Delly Duck, came to life while she was having discussions with her daughter about adopting a younger sibling. Holly’s daughter asked a lot of questions about all aspects of the process, but the thing she really struggled with was the separation of a child from his or her mother. She rightly identified that this must be a difficult and distressing aspect of adoption, and couldn’t understand why a mother and child would or should ever be separated. Holly wanted to support this empathy towards birth parents, while gently showing that the decision to remove a child from their mother would not have been taken lightly. Above all, Holly wanted to portray that all adults involved wanted the best for the adopted child, and that they are so very loved.