The first children's book Larissa ever wrote was called "The Little Apple". It was a collection of folded A4 pages with spelling mistakes and coloured pencil drawings. She was 6 years old. With "The House in Ollie's Tummy" Larissa makes her debut as a children's picture book author and illustrator, writing from the heart about an issue she encounters in her work every day: perinatal bereavement.
Meet the author and illustrator of "The House in Ollie's Tummy", Larissa Reinboth
Early Career
Larissa grew up and studied in Germany and the UK, attaining a BA in Fine Art in Manchester and an MA in Illustration and Book Arts from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England.
A polymath at heart, Larissa's working life exemplifies her truly wondrous diversity of skill. She has held roles in project management for an Australian gold mining company's operations in Peru, been employed as development fund consultant in the arts and cultural heritage sector in Berlin, taught English as a Second Language and held positions as a social worker supporting university students with a disability. But it is with illustration that she has found a medium as diverse as her interests, and today specialises in the use of analogue techniques such as pen and ink, gouache and watercolour.
Though she is fluently trilingual, Larissa prefers to write in English. She was first published at the young age of 17 with a poem in a young writer’s anthology. Since 2018 she has been represented by UK literary and illustration agent SP Agency.
Larissa's great love is the picture book. Writing and illustrating for children allows her to live out her passion for words as well as pictures and to make the stories in her head come alive.
Finding A Calling
Larissa suffered a miscarriage in Germany in 2013 and was stunned to notice how little anyone in the healthcare system cared. Realising that women much, much further along than her must be losing their babies in a climate of similarly lacklustre empathy, she began wondering what to do about this. Larissa's ears pricked up when her younger sister, a midwife, suggested she turn her artistic talent to a new venture and start drawing memorial portraits for bereaved parents.
Larissa's unusual work soon gained the attention of the media and existing bereavement care services. What is more, Larissa quickly realised that her drawings could truly alleviate a parent's grief and suffering. She concluded that keepsake portraits should be viewed as a genuine grief support tool with true therapeutic potential. However, nowhere she looked could she see an organisation that pursued this approach - not in Germany and not in Australia, where Larissa moved in early 2020 with her husband and then 7-month-old daughter.
Newspaper article in Germany's largest daily broadsheet, the Süddeutsche Zeitung
Larissa also realised that having to charge a fee for her drawings in order to earn a living meant that some parents would not be able to afford having a drawing made. This circumstance made her increasingly uneasy, especially once she had come to realise how significant a healing impact a drawing could have: the cost of her service presented a barrier to access.
COVID hit almost as soon as Larissa and her young family arrived in Melbourne . She was left reeling as a newly arrived migrant, first time mum to a small baby and no social network to speak of. Instead of despairing, Larissa decided to roll up her sleeves and get to work on creating an organisation that pursued memory-making as a genuine and free bereavement care service: Possum Portraits was born.
Possum Portraits turned keepsake drawings of angel babies into a new and valuable grief support offering in the Australian healthcare context. Available to parents free of charge, the organisation has drawn almost 150 portraits for bereaved families since it commenced operations in January 2022.
Parents, yes - but what about siblings?
Larissa found much meaning and purpose in creating keepsakes to support parents on their journeys with pregnancy and baby loss. Except parents aren't the only relatives who suffer after the death of their baby. What about its siblings?
Larissa began to think about a bereavement care intervention that could support the whole family unit and meet the various needs both parents and children feel in the wake of their bereavement. What could help the baby's surviving sibling(s) make sense of what happened and support parents to explain difficult concepts like death and strong emotions like grief - especially while struggling to remain present for their existing children amid the raw emotions of their own trauma? For an answer Larissa turned to a medium she adored and was already familiar with - the picture book.
Book Illustration for "The House in Ollie's Tummy" in progress
With the financial support of grantmaking organisations like the Sisters of Charity Foundation and others, "The House in Ollie's Tummy" turned from an idea into a reality. Over the course of a year and a half Larissa wrote, edited and illustrated, consulting all the while with bereaved parents, mental health professionals and publishing experts alike to ensure that the book would end up being a relevant, suitable and authentic psychotherapeutic grief support tool.
Larissa hopes that parents and siblings alike will find comfort, guidance and hope in the book's pages and warmly invites all those who have read "The House in Ollie's Tummy" to leave feedback on the book here.
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