In this touching, often humorous remembrance, Diana Daly introduces young readers to her smart, funny, and caring great aunties and uncles—six remarkable people who lived with skeletal dysplasia at a time when the condition was not well understood. Daly intertwines older family stories with her own memories to create fond portraits of little people who embraced life with joy, faith, and wit. Daly focuses on ability, rather than disability, and and reminds readers that a family is always richer when a place can be made for all of its members. Based on the play “If a Place Could Be Made,” which Daly co-wrote with Anne Troake and Louise Moyes, A Wonderful Bigness is a celebration of family, inclusion, and great heartedness. The book features artwork by NL-born multimedia artist and animator Bruce Alcock.

A stage/production manager, lighting and sound designer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and stage performer, Diana Daly is currently managing producer of Wonderbolt Productions' St. John's International CircusFest. A Wonderful Bigness, her first book, is based on a stage show about her family that she performed in and co-wrote.

Diana Daly's profile page

A multimedia film maker, animator and illustrator, Bruce Alcock was born in Newfoundland. He has made art, created commercials and apps, and worked on independent films and television, including several short films with the National Film Board of Canada and children’s shows on PBS.

Bruce Alcock's profile page

With a candid and conversational writing style, Daly invites readers into this time and place, very poignantly capturing a sense of the community and of Daniel and Kitty’s firm faith and convictions. There is a warm feeling of nostalgia throughout and a heartwarming recognition of the importance of acceptance and inclusion. Daly introduces these men and women by recounting anecdotes from each of their life stories. Alcock’s loose, bold and thickly outlined illustrations, with their gentle washes of colour, provide their own joyfulness and perfectly capture the spirit of this bighearted tale.

Lisa Doucet

A beautiful story of family love, illustrated with warmth and whimsy.

Jean Graham