On paper, Jemma Leech is a regular 10-year-old, albeit one with some lofty goals. But Jemma has cerebral palsy, a disease for which there is no known cure.

Yet she has proved to have a remarkable talent for writing. Recently, she beat out 1,600 kids in an essay contest after judges unanimously voted her the winner, only to later learn that the budding novelist can't sit up without support.

An excerpt from her winning essay:

I remember in London the winters were warm and wet.

No snow or ice, just rainy gumboot-puddled walks in Brockwell Park, while the summer-packed paddling pool filled of its own accord with rainwater, autumn leaves and rainbows of crisp bags.

We disappeared in the secret garden underneath palisades of sleeping creeping clematis and wisteria, swapping the dry dark with the wet light as we trailed the paving maze to the fishpond at its heart.

Blackbirds waded in patches of newly dug earth, taking worms from the mud as an avocet might from a turning tide-bare beach.

A robin called to me from the crumbling wall, saying 'spring will be here soon, believe me, believe me.'

All I have to say is, what is an avocet?