Sutton Library staged a book launch this week where Get on Downs, a parent-led charity, hosts weekly coffee and cake meetings every Wednesday for families with children with Down’s syndrome.
Liz Arriens-Troy’s memoir, Everybody Wants a Dance With Coraline, is based on her award-winning blog “Coraline and Us”, which she began when Coraline was born.
The book centres on her reflections across the first four years of Coraline’s life while in Sutton, and Arriens-Troy says, “the power of our thoughts to shape our feelings”.
“It feels so nostalgic to come back, and so fitting, after all the love we received,” she told Inside Sutton.
Arriens-Troy says that she, her husband Kevin and Coraline “were enveloped with warmth and care from Get on Downs and many other local charities and organisations”.
Coraline was born eight years ago and was diagnosed at birth with Down’s syndrome and two holes in her heart. Her family moved to Devon four years ago.
Captive audience: Liz Arriens-Troy reads her book to the Get on Down’s members, plus Sutton Council officials
Among those attending the book launch this week were the Mayor of Sutton, Councillor Louise Phelan, and Councillor Barry Lewis, the council leader.
Everybody Wants a Dance With Coraline is available to purchase online from coralineskincare.com, the website of the award-winning business established in 2020 by Kevin to make an organic, natural and vegan skincare range for people with dry, sensitive skin, a mission he took up to find a more suitable product for his daughter.
“What an occasion,” Arriens-Troy said after the book launch, where she gave a reading from her book alongside Lu Davies, who helps run the Get on Downs charity.
“To share the launch with the people and organisations who made such a difference to Coraline and me during her first four years when we lived in Sutton means the world to me.
“I loved it from start to finish and I had such a positive response to the book and my writing it.”
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