/ ABOUT US
Formy Books CIC is a Community Interest Company and Independent Children’s Book Publisher, established in early 2020 by partners Ebony Lyon and Curtis Ackie.
We create inclusive and authentic children’s stories, transforming everyday life into fun and fantastic adventures.
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In our home, book time is something we all love to share. This translates into our drive to create uplifting books that illustrate the amazing everyday moments children experience and portray their adventures authentically. Fun, everyday things for children to enjoy.
The world is beautifully diverse, and we believe our books should accurately reflect this. To develop positive self-image and empathy, children should see themselves, and others authentically reflected in the pages they read. Our stories feature Black characters in incidental ways, simply experiencing the human experience of everyday life.
“Historically speaking, diverse books are often “issue books,” in which the character’s Identity forms the core of the story. Books about protagonists of colour would automatically be about racism, immigration, or poverty; books about disabled characters would automatically be about their changed life, people’s skewed perceptions, or “overcoming” disability.” —Corinne Duyvis
Some things we are passionate about here at Formy Books CIC include:
Increasing Black representation across all genres in children’s literature.
Platforming and amplifying emerging Black creative talent in publishing
Removing barriers that prevent people from marginalised communities and backgrounds from working in publishing.
Challenging damaging and limiting stereotypes
Publishing excellent quality and beautiful books for children to enjoy now, and remember warmly in their older years.
Did you know?
The ‘Formy’ part of our name (pronounced for-me) grew out of our first title Later, which Curtis wrote for our youngest children, Miko and Yari. Formy Books is literally (For) (M)iko and (Y)ari!
The CIC bit is there because we reinvest whatever profits we make back into doing more of what we love: making wonderful books!
We print locally in the UK, this means are costs have to be higher than we’d like, but we want to keep our carbon footprint down and support local businesses.
We are ND owned and managed. Ebony is an ADHDer and Curtis is Autistic.
We are equal parts self-funded and Kickstarter community funded. We are so grateful for all the love and backing we’ve received from our Kickstarter community. The funding means we get to continue doing what we love we’d like to think the beautiful books we put out are worthwhile.
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Lastly, your custom keeps us running! When you buy a book directly from us, rather than a major retailer, all the money which usually goes to the major retailers goes to us instead. (We have to give them a 50% wholesale discount!) This allows us to continue to invest in developing and publishing books by emerging Black creatives and print our books locally in the UK. Publishing quality children’s picturebooks is not easy, but we love doing it and with your help we can continue publishing in this way.
THANK YOU for shopping with us here at Formy Books CIC!
