Guinness World Records has announced its youngest publisher who is all of five years and 211 days. Bella J Dark from Weymouth, UK has become the world’s youngest person to publish a book (female). Her book The Lost Cat tells the tale of Snowy, a cat who gets lost after venturing outside alone at night.
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The book was published on January 31, 2022 by Ginger Fyre Press and has since sold over 1,000 copies.
Interestingly, Bella has broken the record of Dorothy Straight, born on May 25, 1958, who was just six years old when her book How the World Began was published by Pantheon Books in August 1964, reported the Guinness site.
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Bella told the records site she got the idea of the book from one of her drawings. “It started off as a picture. My daddy said I could make a book and a story came from the picture.”
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Her mother, 27-year-old Chelsie Syme, told Guinness that Bella has always had a great imagination and has been writing short stories “from as young as three”.
Bella spent “about five days” writing the entire story. She also illustrated the book by herself (with the exception of one picture at the end drawn by older sister Lacie May).
The Lost Cat book written by Bella J Dark (Source: GuinnessWorldRecords.com)
Bella hopes her book will “teach children not to go outside on their own at night time”.
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Notably, for any book to be eligible for the Guinness World Records title, it must be published by a commercial publishing house and at least 1,000 copies must be printed and sold.
Bella also took inspiration from books such as What the Ladybird Heard, Splat the Cat and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
The Guinness site also shares the youngest person to publish a book (male) is Thanuwana Serasinghe (Sri Lanka) who was fours years and 356 days old when his book Junk Food was released on January 5, 2017.
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