Finlay the First Aid Bear
About the Author
Luella Stanley is the managing director of First Aid Action, a successful business that provides valuable first aid training and up-skilling to corporate and private clients.
Luella has valuable experience as a registered nurse in various hospital settings, as well as emergency care and first aid. She has spent many years teaching first aid to students, teachers and clients from various other professions and corporations. Luella also has extensive experience as a sports trainer.
She is passionate about first aid education for everyone, and hopes to extend at least a basic knowledge of first aid to children in the hope that they may be better equipped to help others feel better, recover more quickly or even save a life.
The Dare to Golden Mountain is Luella's debut children's book, featuring Finlay the First Aid Bear. She has teamed up with long-time friend and illustrator, Dani Mathewson, to bring her ideas to life. This is the first book in a series aimed at teaching easily understandable first aid to kids through engaging characters on an epic adventure of discovery.
About the Illustrator
Dani Mathewson is a freelance illustrator and photographic retouch artist, as well as an author of YA fiction. After twenty-one years as a professional photographer, she sold her studio to pursue an indie publishing career. Her action thriller, Powder, was released in 2018 and debuted in the iTunes Charts Top 100 Books across all genres, where it remained for eight months. She followed this with a YA adventure romance novel, The Lingering, in 2021.
In recent times, Dani has taken a break from writing, shifting her focus back to her artwork. She dabbles in a variety of styles across multiple mediums, from Disney-like storybook realism to fine art portraiture, rendered both freehand and digitally.
She also works in healthcare, managing a busy surgical practice but somehow manages to find time to nurture her creativity and imagination through her involvement in exciting projects such as
Finlay the First Aid Bear.
Special Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Sara Balzary. Sara has helped behind the scenes, from naming characters to creating the website and interactive elements. She has an amazingly creative talent for taking Luella's ideas and turning them into reality.
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Sara is a hairdresser in Manly West, Queensland Australia, and also works for Luella doing all things admin for First Aid Action. Sara has been hairdressing for over 10 years and opened her own business 2 years ago, working for herself. She loves all things hair and making people feel like their best version of themselves. She loves creating whatever her clients desire, including all the creative colours of their imagination. Sara is blessed to have some of the kindest and greatest clients that have become a part of her life.
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You can find her at Blossum Creative on Facebook and Instagram - all pictures of her work is there for the viewing. Please feel free to get in contact with her via her socials.
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About Finlay The First Aid Bear
Finlay the First Aid Bear is no ordinary bear. Finlay loves going on adventures and exploring the big wide world! Even when his friends are playing, he is off somewhere in the woods, exploring.
Finlay loves his home in Windy Falls Woods. The Woods has lots of trees, caves, a large creek and is surrounded by beautiful mountains. The tallest and most beautiful mountain is Golden Mountain.
Finlay often goes to the library and reads books on famous bear explorers. He joined the Wilderness Warriors when he was a young cub, and learnt lots of skills. Finlay learnt how to start a fire, how to build a shelter and how to catch fish. He also learnt how to do First Aid.
Finlay knows what to do if he hurts his paw, gets a cut or if a snake bites him while adventuring in the woods. He also knows it is important to help others.
Finlay is excited to share his First Aid skills with you!