How to use this Page

Heidi is exceptionally good at hiding. She can blend in anywhere!

Kind friends know Heidi’s amazing skill and let her win whenever they play hide-and-seek, but is hiding away really the best way to have fun with your friends? What might they be good at? What might they most enjoy doing?

Fiona Woodcock‘s playful and stylish début, Hiding Heidi is a lovely exploration of friendship and thinking of others. Heidi’s delightful friends help her learn that you don’t always have to be the best at something to enjoy it, especially when you know your friends are having a good time too.

Mixing the delight of spotting Heidi in her various hiding places, with fresh and joyful illustrations and a story perfect for fostering kindness and understanding, Hiding Heidi is an uplifting read. To celebrate its publication this month I recently caught up with Fiona Woodcock and asked her a few questions about her journey to becoming a published illustrator. I’m really pleased to share our conversation with you today.

Playing by the book: Wanting to draw was in your fingertips from an early age I believe – can you tell me a bit about your early art making experiences? How were you encouraged? What experiences were particularly informative and encouraging?

Fiona Woodcock: I was always drawing as a child and my parents found it hard to get me to stop and read instead. At primary school I was selected along with two other budding artists from each class to join a lunchtime art club. We exhibited our work in the local library. So from a young age, being creative formed my identity really.

I would also add that, not only was I always drawing as a child, I did a lot of looking too (or some might say staring!) But I think that being observant and taking everything in is a big part of being creative.

One of my earliest collaborative art making experiences must have been at a preschool class when I was about 3 or 4. We had to screw up pieces of coloured tissue paper which were poked into a huge polystyrene board. The end result was an image of Alice in Wonderland, which I remember being utterly amazed by.

Playing by the book: I really love your comment about the importance of observation. I’m sure this was something you developed further whilst studying – can you tell us a bit about your course at the Glasgow School of Art? How much illustration – and children’s book illustration in particular – was part of the course?

Fiona Woodcock: I studied Graphic communication at Glasgow School of Art, which I loved as it was very drawing and ideas based. It was there that I got into animation – I just loved making my drawings move.

There was a lot of drawing on the course, we’d draw on location every week in places like Kelvingrove Art Gallery, The Transport Museum and The Botanical Gardens. And went on an amazing field trip to Uist in the Outer Hebrides.

Whilst at Glasgow I did a couple of book projects, but not specifically children’s books. I always enjoyed the challenge of sequential images, which is probably why I was also fascinated by animation.

After graduation, I came to London and sought out illustrative animation projects. It became clear that my favourite aspect of the animation process was the design / illustration and so my route into illustration came that way.

Playing by the book: I’d love to know about about your process for making the art in ‘Hiding Heidi’ – including the materials you used, the research you did. What would your top tips be for kids who wanted to have a go at creating art inspired by ‘Hiding Heidi’?

Fiona Woodcock: My process for ‘Hiding Heidi’ started with lots of pencil sketches to help refine the characters. I like to draw on animation paper, it’s a habit I can’t get out of. In some cases I’d use the initial pencil drawings for the final artwork as the redrawn version would loose the expression and energy of the original sketch.

I created the colour work by cutting my own rubber stamps and printing with ink pads to create textured shapes of colour. I also cut stencils and used charcoal and children’s blo-pens. Then everything is composited in the computer and endlessly tweaked.

The way I work has evolved from lots of playful experimentation and I’d encourage children who wanted to create Heidi inspired art to do the same. They could try doing simple potato prints to create imagined places for Heidi to hide in and add extra drawn details. Or use stickers and collage to create their own patterned sofa to hide Heidi on. But essentially just play, that’s how great surprises happen!

Playing by the book: Yes, playful exploration! My sort of thing Is there a secret hidden in the illustrations for ‘Hiding Heidi’ that you’d be prepared to share with us?

Fiona Woodcock: There are a couple of very subtle things to spot on the boating lake scene on the last page, which are different to the other earlier illustration of the boating lake. An indication that even though Heidi is still camouflaged, something has changed. But I’m not going to say, it’s just there for the most observant of readers!

Playing by the book: Brilliant! We’ll all be going back to take a closer look now :-)I love your celebration of a playful approach when it comes to making art. On my blog it’s all about the play inspired by the books we’ve read. What’s the last thing you did (other than creating illustrations) inspired by a book you loved?

Fiona Woodcock: I was very inspired by Cloth Lullaby by Amy Novesky and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. It reminded me about the wonderful fabric drawings and cloth books by Louise Bourgeois, which has lead me to hatch a plan do some bold graphic fabric based creation myself.

Playing by the book: What a great idea – I can easily imagine your eye for colour and design coming up with some fabulous fabric prints. I do hope your plans come to fruition!

What’s up next for you on the book front? And do you have any time to work on animation at the moment?

Fiona Woodcock: I’m presently working on my second author illustrated book with Simon and Schuster called ‘Bloom’, which will be out next year, and there are other exciting projects that I will be sharing soon too! I’m devoting most of my time at the moment to developing books, so I’m not able to take on any big animation projects, but I really enjoyed working with some friends to produce this short animated trailer for the book.

***********************************************

I’m indebted to Fiona for her generous answers and insight today. I hope you’ve enjoyed our interview, and will seek out Hiding Heidi. It’s given us lots of ideas for project we’d like to try at home – from making sunflower hats (inspired by this), holding bouncy hopper races, making simple boats to sail to the river this holiday, and reading an old, related favourite, Halibut Jackson by David Jackson, to trying our own version of Liu Bolin’s invisibility art!

And here’s some TERRIFIC news! Like the sound of Hiding Heidi? Well… I have one SIGNED HARDBACK to giveaway – and this time the giveaway is international!

This giveaway is open WORLDWIDE

To enter, simply leave a comment on this blog post

For extra entries you can:

(1) Tweet about this giveaway, perhaps using this text:
Win a signed hardback of @FionaWoodcock’s ‘Hiding Heidi’! To enter just leave a comment here: http://www.playingbythebook.net/2016/07/22/fiona-woodcock/ Worldwide,ends 29/7

(2) Share this giveaway on your Facebook page or blog

You must leave a separate comment for each entry for them to count

The winner will be chosen at random using random.org

The giveaway is open for one week, and closes on Friday 29 July 2016 23.59pm UK time. I will contact the winner via email. If I do not hear back from the winner within one week of emailing them, I will re-draw as appropriate

Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of this book by the publisher.

Find out more about Fiona on her website or on Twitter:
http://fionawoodcock.com
@FionaWoodcock)

Display Comments Add a Comment

The Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize celebrates the best books that communicate science to young people and this year’s I’m thrilled to be part of the shortlisting judging panel. I’m working alongside several scientists, a teacher and a writer, Andy Seed. Andy himself was a teacher for many years, but now he’s an award-winning author with more than 20 books under his belt, for children and adults, fiction and non-fiction. His The Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff won of the 2015 Blue Peter Best Book with Facts Award.

To celebrate our working together I recently caught up with Andy as he jetsetted between school visits in Dundee and Lagos and we got talking about issues that matter to us both: (1) what makes great non-fiction for children and young people, (2) cheese (yes, really!), and (3) why we’re both so enthusiastic about a book award which inspires young people to read about science.

To ease us in gently I ask about childhood reading. It turns out that Andy wasn’t a great reader when he was at school though Dr Seuss and later ‘Stig of the Dump’ were favourites. As to his introduction to non-fiction, Andy reveals that he “became hooked when my grandparents bought me Look and Learn annuals at the age of about 9 and I discovered The Guinness Book of Records (as it was). It was the combination of pictures and fascinating details that gripped me: the things in these books were real and they stirred my imagination and left me wanting to find out more. I like facts and figures too so that helped. I think the visual element was powerful: pages of uninterrupted text by themselves are unappealing to many kids.”

Perhaps it’s partly because of my blog focus on picture books, but I’m really interested in this power of illustration, so I quiz Andy a bit more on this: why is illustration so important in children’s non-fiction (CNF), what makes for great CNF illustration…? Andy responds enthusiastically:

“The world of children is visually much richer than it used to be and books need to up their game to compete with electronic devices, TV and so on. But that does not mean that CNF books should be wham-bam in terms of design, colour and illustrations. In fact I saw a CNF book recently which was so violently bright that I didn’t want to read it. Another had so much shine and glitter that the info was drowned out.

The visual element is not just about illustration, it’s about layout, text formatting and page design. Text in fact books needs to be inviting, and the shape and structure of it can make a big difference: the writing and pictures need to work together and there should be ‘breathing space’ on a page too: I think that having too much stuff on crammed together leads to skimming and a degeneration of reader attentiveness. A good page draws the reader in, points him or her to the way in and the guides the best route through the content (both images and text) – the challenge is to invite the reader to take in everything while maintaining an attractive spread. The best CNF books do this.

”

I couldn’t agree more. But perhaps publishers of CNF are a little bit stuck in a rut? It’s my experience that for quite a few purchasers of CNF, books lavishly illustrated with photographs (such as DK Books) are often considered to be the be all and end all when it comes to richly illustrated non-fiction.

“Great CNF illustration can be all sorts of things,” continues Andy “In some books the photos overwhelm the info so it’s important to strike a working balance. I’m a fan of drawn pictures because the illustrator is interpreting, complementing, highlighting and often embellishing with a little humour too. Lots of small, clean photos can work well but there are no rules really – it takes the eye of a brilliant designer to create a whole from the various parts.”

Some CNF with drawn illustrations which Andy really loves include these:

Looking at this amazing array of non-fiction I find myself wondering out loud about why on earth non-fiction doesn’t always get the airtime it deserves… why it is quite often overlooked.

Andy jumps straight in: “One of the issues for me is that the gatekeepers of children’s literature in this country are in the main people who prefer fiction and they (for very good reasons) want to promote great stories or fiction books which cover issues they consider important and worthy of children’s attention. I’m wary of bringing up the issue of gender because it puts one at the risk of being shot down in anger or misunderstood (as happened to a fellow author recently) but children’s publishing has few men in key roles and therefore few people who have directly experienced the boys’ perspective. It’s a truth that many boys prefer non-fiction (as some girls do too) but fiction is more often put in front of them.

Another reason is that children’s non-fiction (CNF) is often too narrowly viewed. It has an unhelpful association with educational books – fact books which are perhaps regarded as a little dull. CNF is far more than that but it’s this perception that holds it back. CNF includes miscellanies, biogs, joke books, puzzle books, activity books, TV/film tie-ins, and more – but these categories of books are overlooked in the main as being less important. They are in fact very important in capturing reluctant readers in particular. Everyone loves funny fiction but funny non-fiction rarely gets a look in.

A third reason connected with this is book awards: there are few prizes for CNF and those that exist get little airtime. Many awards are open to CNF but fiction always wins because of the reasons given above in my view. CNF also doesn’t get as much space on blogs and articles. Media reviews of CNF are like hen’s teeth! Some reviewers tell me that publishers hardly ever send them CNF titles. Do they ask for them?

”

Andy is on a roll and barely stops for breath…

“Add to this the perception that the internet, in some people’s view, has made CNF redundant. For me this is nonsense and reflects the narrow view of CNF as ‘information books’. Good CNF has a magical combination of images, high quality writing and child-centredness that the web (which is 95% aimed at adults) cannot match.

Then there’s the part played by schools: I visit over 50 schools a year and so often CNF books are out of date and put on neglected library shelves. Rarely do I see displays of varied non-fiction. Horrible Histories and the series it spawned are the exception and they still feature but teachers need to give children opportunities to read and enjoy a range of CNF. And as for bookshops? They often have a tiny CNF shelf tucked away (not always) but have you have tried to find a joke book or children’s poetry in a shop? Labelling and categorisation in libraries is often unhelpful to CNF too. And we haven’t even talked yet about book festivals – they rarely feature CNF and this needs to be challenged. One prominent festival had 18 children’s fiction authors doing events and no non-fiction (for children) at all. That is inexcusable – where is the diversity, the inclusion, the variety, the choice – and why would kids who love CNF go anywhere near that festival?

”

But surely it doesn’t have to be like this? In the United States, non-fiction for children has a much higher status and seems to be more widely read and enjoyed. What do they do differently which we could perhaps model here in the UK?

“As I understand it there is a requirement in the US for children to use non-fiction books as part of their programmes of study. This creates a strong market because schools actually need the books to fulfil this element of the curriculum. This leads to the necessary engagement of teachers with CNF – they have to be familiar with the books to ensure that kids use them well (and of course they want classes to have good books in front of them). So there is an interest in CNF generated by the American educational system.

This just isn’t the case here in the UK. The English curriculum certainly mentions information texts and looking at features of non-fiction books (headings, sub-headings etc) but my experience, as an ex-teacher and visitor to over 50 primary schools a year, is that teachers tend to use photocopied pages for this (so everyone is looking at the same examples) or scanned samples on a digital whiteboard or maybe even ready-made page grabs from the web. Of course some will use real books but I just don’t see teachers using CNF books in the classroom like they once did. Some use them for research still but the internet is an easy option for many.

”

So apart from perhaps lobbying for a more robust inclusion of non-fiction into the curriculum what else can we do to encourage great children’s non-fiction? Here at Playing by the Book I try to highlight exceptional CNF books whenever I can, but authors and publishers surely also have a role – could they be doing something differently to support CNF? Andy comes up with some very practical suggestions:

“CNF authors are usually limited by the market and what publishers are looking for so that’s a problem… but CNF authors can do the following:
– Encourage one another to work together and promote CNF
– Blog, tweet, write articles and similar
– Question or even challenge the fiction bias/predominance
– Shout about CNF’s excellent credentials in terms of capturing reluctant readers
– Come up with a natty label: YA has YA, MG has MG. Perhaps ‘CNF’ will do but we need a hashtag and twitter groups and more. A focal point is essential
– Encourage organisations like the Society of Authors and Booktrust, Literacy Trust and government agencies to back a campaign to promote CNF and raise awareness of its value

Publishers can send out more CNF for review, push their CNF authors to festivals, put more publicity money in CNF promotion, show more imagination in terms of buying/producing CNF which marries fun with fact or biogs or books which have visual pizazz. Some of this is happening and Flying Eye Books are having deserved success with many of their titles.

”

Marrying fun and facts with great visuals is definitely something I’d like to see more regularly (though I also believe that real engagement doesn’t only have to come about through humour). Passion, a sense of vitality, really helps when it comes to hooking readers and so I wonder if Andy, who it turns out really loves cheese (indeed “If I were a scientist I think I would study the impact of different crackers on the taste of cheese… “) might ever write about his passion?

“Hmmm, interesting question! If I did write a children’s book about cheese I wonder how publishers would react. If I did I would include lots of fun elements: jokes, cheese weirdness, wacky lists, cheeses with silly names and so on. Lots of interesting facts and info too, of course. It would be appealing to children but I suspect publishers would shy away from the idea because such a book would be unusual and not sit easily into any category (making the sales people nervy perhaps?). Or maybe it’s changing…”

Andy and I are certainly getting a snapshot of what the children’s non-fiction world looks like at the moment with all the books submitted for the The Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize. I get the strong sense that Andy is just as excited as me to be on the award’s shortlisting panel. “Oh Yes! I’m really thrilled! I mean the Royal Society is one of the most respected, august and historically significant organisations in the world. I think it’s excellent that they have asked a CNF author who writes funny books to be part of the panel because it shows that they have a good understanding of the child’s perspective. There are also many great science books for kids out there and I want to help get them noticed.”

Yes Indeed, is all I can say to that!

You can find out more about The Royal Society’s Young People’s Book Prize here.

If you’re a teacher or someone who runs a youth group, perhaps you and the children you work with would like to help choose the winning book for the award? It’s easy to register to become one of the judging panels for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize, with participation open to any group able to read and discuss the shortlist and vote for what they think is the best book.

To become a judging panel for the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize you’ll need to complete this online registration form. Registration to become a judging panel will close on Monday 25 April 2016.

Huge thanks to Andy for the interesting conversation we shared. Do check out his website, or perhaps even say hello to him on Twitter (@andyseedauthor).

Display Comments Add a Comment

In terrific news, earlier this month Leigh Hobbs was announced as the new Australian Children’s Laureate, following in the footsteps of Alison Lester, Boori Monty Pryor and Jackie French.

Now much loved for his funny and often somewhat naughty or anarchic characters including Mr Chicken, Old Tom and Horrible Harriet, as a shy child Leigh did not dream of becoming an author, let alone a champion for children’s reading and books.

It was art that was his passion from the very beginning. Drawing was what he was “best at” in school. Drawing was what he spent all his spare time doing. Indeed, it could almost be called an obsession: at one point his father gave him an alarm clock and the instruction that drawing could only commence after it had gone off in the morning… at 6am!

Seeds of Leigh’s future style were clearly sown in those early days, with illustrations by Ronald Searle and Ludwig Bemelmans being favourites of his to pour over. “I adored Searle’s line and dark ironic sense of humour,” said Leigh when I recently interviewed him to celebrate his appointment as Laureate. I’m sure I’m not the first to see parallels between Leigh’s scratchy, flowing illustrations full of mischief and spontaneity and the freshness of Searle’s work.

Leigh’s love of drawing led him into 25 years of teaching art at secondary school. But “while I was an art teacher I did some freelance newspaper cartoons. There was always a frightful deadline, a space to fill, a topic to absorb and some text to wade through. Often I never understood the story I was supposed to illustrate. Especially if it was about something like, say, finance. So I’d just do a berserk cartoon then pull a line of text from the story and set the two together. From this I gradually developed an ear for a line of text and an eye for the text saying one thing and the drawing saying something completely different. I realised that there was power and in fact another, a third point of view in the combination.”

And this third point of view has since become a key characteristic in Leigh’s books for children; a delicious tension between what you observe in the illustrations and what you read in his words, inviting you to giggle.

As the Australian Children’s Laureate, Leigh wants to champion “creative opportunities for children.”

“I get the impression that nearly everywhere in the school context kids are assessed, ranked or ‘marked’. One of the things I’d like to do as Laureate is to champion the idea that, while I don’t believe every child is a ‘would be’ writer or artist, I do believe that given the chance, every child is capable of expressing themselves in words or pictures creatively in a way that is meaningful to them.

Creativity in the context I hope to be focussed on is not in the ‘training the child for a job’ sense. Nor is it a case of ‘every child is an artist or writer’. I never tell an audience that ‘You’re all artists’ or ‘Writers’. However I think if freed from the pressure of assessment or comparison kids can express themselves creatively in a way which they may find fulfilling. Draw a picture. Write a story. Paint a picture. Describe in words or pictures how you feel. Write a poem. Or write and illustrate a story. Create a design. Invent a code. Do it all in your own sketchbook or diary which no one can see without your permission. This would be an adjunct to the other school subjects which are assessed.

”

I love this focus on creativity – for me, life is pretty meaningless without some sort of creativity in it, but I was curious to hear why Leigh thinks it is so important to encourage it.

“I think it’s important to encourage creativity in children. Art, music, writing. It’s natural for kids to want to express themselves and the choice of form which suits them best is a personal one. Of course there’s also the life enriching enjoyment from an appreciation of the creative work of others.”

And the creativity of others plays an important role in feeding Leigh’s own creativity. He has particular passions for classical music (favourite composers include Bach, Handel, Purcell and Mozart) and architecture (in particular Eighteenth century architecture, with the Pump Room at Bath and Kenwood House in London ranking amongst his most loved buildings), but reading – and reading non-fiction especially – plays a vital role in nurturing his inventiveness. “I feed and have always fed my creativity by reading. Even as a child the books I read were about history, architecture, art and biographies. All this information has gone into a sort of big reference library in my head. I draw from it or refer to it when I want to.”

Libraries have played an important role in providing the raw material to feed the fire of Leigh’s creativity and this is just one of the reason’s he also wants to use his tenure as Laureate to highlight their amazing work. Like here in the UK, “school libraries in Australia seem to be under threat and librarians an endangered species. I visit on average about 30 schools every year doing presentations and running workshops for students and I’ve noted that when a librarian retires they often are not replaced. I’ve visited schools where a library carefully, often lovingly built up over decades sits completely unused because there is no longer a librarian employed by the school. Even worse is when all the books are dispersed throughout the school. Or thrown out.”

Losing libraries is no joke at all. But wanting to remain upbeat, I ask Leigh about humour. I’ve yet to read a book by Leigh which hasn’t got me guffawing, or snorting through my nose. And yet, funny books often fly under the radar somewhat. Leigh agrees: “I think the value of humour is often overlooked. ‘It’s funny so it can’t be serious’. Humour is complex and personal. And mysterious. to analyse the whys and wherefores of humour can ruin the joke.”” As if to immediately prove his point, when asked what Leigh himself finds funny he admits, “I’ve never found jokes funny. I may appreciate that they’re clever but I seldom laugh when told a joke. I always found the Three Stooges hilarious and I think Fawlty Towers is a masterpiece of television comedy. However I was never a great Monty Python fan.”

Basil Fawlty, Moe, Larry and Curly – they’re all tremendously strong characters who stay with you long after you’ve first met them. And this strong sense of character seems to me a key feature of Leigh’s work, and so I was curious to learn something about how he goes about developing his characters.

“Yes, I think of my books as primarily character studies. The characters have developed book by book. I enjoy putting the characters in different situations and seeing how they react. Not to mention how those around them react… I started off illustrating other peoples books in 1990 but moved to creating my own characters as a response to the cutesy pie goody two-shoe type characters I’d seen in children’s books. I wanted more character in my characters and so Old Tom was born.”

“I wanted to create an edgy humorous creature with a distinct and independent personality. Someone that both adults and children could identify with. Someone or something who could connect with the reader in a good-natured but subversive way. And most importantly he had to be likeable if not ‘lovable’. A dog was out of the question. Too loyal and eager to please. I could see an independent, sly, lazy, feral, scruffy, seven year old boy in the guise of a tom cat / Tasmanian Devil type creature though. Pairing him with a prim, matronly, house proud, good-natured but bossy mother figure felt just right.”

I can’t resist asking Leigh which of his characters he most identifies with. “Undoubtedly there are aspects of me in every one of my characters. I was a secondary school art teacher for twenty five years and there were many Old Tom’s and Horrible Harriets. My stories are written from the heart as much as the head. This means that the ‘issues’ that inevitably work their way up through the story via the characters, such as difficulties in family relationships, or the need for friendship are explored through humour, by fully – fleshed out characters.”

Leigh’s books are filled with authentic characters, warts and all, drawn with energy (though Leigh takes “much care to make it look easy. This often means endless drafts of text and many versions of drawings to try and make text and illustrations seem effortless, with varying degrees of success. For me if it looks laboured I have to start again.“). Mr Badger is the latest to be found on bookshelves up and down the country, but his next book will see a new adventure with Mr Chicken running amok in Rome.



Creating books loved by families isn’t all Leigh spends his time doing. Painting in oil and creating sculptures (most recently a series of teapots, inspired by some of his favourite local architecture) also mean a great deal to him. Whether he’ll have much time for these during his Laureateship remains to be seen. It’s going to be a very busy period – indeed this weekend sees Leigh arrive in Europe for a packed fortnight of school visits. Once he has completed ‘Mr Chicken arriva a Roma’ he’ll be concentrating on travelling across Australia running workshops and speaking at Festivals making the most of what, for him, is the best thing about being made Laureate: “I’ll have an opportunity to speak up for the causes and things that I feel strongly about in connection to the world of Children’s Literature. Libraries and Librarians in schools. ‘Taking children’s books – and humour more seriously’ and going in to bat, speaking up when I can for the creators – both writers and illustrators of kids books.”

Find out more about Leigh on his website: http://www.leighhobbs.com/

Find out more about the Australian Children’s Laureate on their website: http://www.childrenslaureate.org.au/ Do look out in particular for the ‘It’s Your Story’ Calendar which Leigh has created, full of prompts for your own story adventures.

Leigh is published in the UK by Allen and Unwin and Bloomsbury. He is in the UK twice a year, and can be booked for school visits through Speaking of Books.

Add a Comment

Tim Hopgood is an illustrator and author I admire greatly. His brilliant Here Comes Frankie was one of the first books I reviewed on this blog, over 6 years ago now, and I’ve yet to read a book of his which hasn’t made me happy.

His use of colour is exceptional. His strong sense of design is eye-catching. His use of visual textures always has me stroking the pages of his books. Yes, I’ll admit I’m a bit of fan!

And so it’s a great honour, and an enormous delight to bring you an interview with Tim today. His latest book is something of a departure for him – up till now (at least when working with children’s publishers) he has always illustrated fiction, but Fabulous Frogs is a bold, extremely beautiful and fascinating non-fiction collaboration with Martin Jenkins (author of the award-winning Can We Save the Tiger?). I kicked off my interview with Tim by asking him about this different genre and what impact it had on his illustrations.

Playing by the book: This is the first time you’ve illustrated a non-fiction book. How was your approach different (and also how was it similar) to illustrating a fiction picture book?

Tim Hopgood: It was my first time working on a non-fiction book and my first time working with the team at Walker (Editor – Lucy Ingrams, Art Director – Beth Aves) and Author – Martin Jenkins, but what was so great was their approach was exactly the same as mine when working on my own picture books. By that, I mean the process was very fluid. We met a few times face-to-face at key stages in the development of the book and the rest of the time it was all done via email, but nothing was ever set in stone until it went to print, and that’s how I like to work. So the book was allowed to evolve in a very natural, organic way; it was a very enjoyable process.

It was also incredibly hard work. For me, the biggest challenge was trying to capture the essence and personality of each frog in my style of illustration whilst remaining anatomically correct. When working on a fiction picture book I wouldn’t be too concerned with anatomical correctness as I’d be more interested in whether my frog character had personality and emotion so this was the main difference, as all the frogs had to be easily identifiable. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn anything quite so small and in such detail as the tiny frogs from Papua New Guinea!

The other big difference was each frog belonged to a different world; so unlike in a fiction picture book where you create a world for your characters to exist in and have to stick to it throughout the book, this project allowed me the freedom to create completely different backgrounds for each frog. In some cases I kept the backgrounds white, which is something I don’t usually do in my own books.

Playing by the book: I think you’ve combined anatomical correctness, personality and emotion wonderfully well in this book – a huge part of its visual appeal is that the frogs have immense personality – lifting the book into something special and very, very distant from a “dry” fact based book…

Tim Hopgood: Thank you Zoe! that’s really good to hear…

Playing by the book: So is there anything about the process of illustrating non-fiction that you think you will “bring back” to your story picture books? Any way of looking at a subject which is different for you now because of the things you had to think about with your frogs?

Tim Hopgood: Although I wasn’t able to draw any of the frogs from life, I think my observational skills were sharpened because of this project. I studied lots and lots of photographs of each frog and had to work out what were the defining features, what made each frog special and then try to bring that frog to life on the page. I think working on the book reignited my interest in nature and I think this will influence my future projects.

Playing by the book: That’s wonderful to hear! Were you a fan of frogs before you illustrated the book? Not everyone loves wet slimy creatures…

Tim Hopgood: As a child I was fascinated by frogspawn and tadpoles; I think children like the way tadpoles move in the water. When my children were little we discovered frogs at the bottom of our garden so we created a small pond in the hope to encourage more (we put an old school sink in the ground and put some plants in it) and amazingly it wasn’t too long before we had a sink full of tadpoles. The kids loved watching the tadpoles grow and develop into tiny frogs.

Playing by the book: Which is your favourite frog in your book?

Tim Hopgood: My favourite is the striped rocket frog from Australia. It can jump five metres in one go. I love the look of this frog with its cool stripes running down its back and sides. The other one I really enjoyed drawing is the Malagasy rainbow frog.

Playing by the book: How did you and the author interact during the process of creating the book – like a great picture book, the illustrations in this book don’t just double up on the text – there’s a real interplay between words and images. Did Martin indicate what he was thinking of with regard to images? Or was there something of a dialogue about how text and image could play together?

Tim Hopgood: When I first read Martin’s text what really appealed to me was the humour running through it and that it was packed full of frogs I’d never heard of, so I knew this had the potential to be a very striking and informative book. Although we didn’t interact directly – it was all done via Beth (Art Director) – there was definitely a dialogue between text and image which shifted and developed throughout the creative process, but it was a team effort.

We did meet a few times at key stages in the development of the book. At our first meeting we discussed the overall approach and Lucy (Editor) explained how the text would work on two levels: there’s the main text running through the book and then there’s the more detailed information which would sit smaller on the page. We discussed initial ideas for each spread and Beth and Martin provided me with source material for each frog. The next stage was for me to respond to the text in a visual way.

For my first rough I did several versions for each spread so that we could discuss options and work out which one we all thought worked best. Throughout the process the copy would be revised and repositioned on the page to work with the illustrations I was creating. And sometimes I did new drawings to sit more comfortably with the text. Beth is the kind of Art Director I really enjoy working with, the kind that has a clever knack of getting the best out of you, sometimes pushing you out of your comfort zone, but in a supportive and encouraging way. I think a great Art Director can often see things in your work that you as an artist can’t see yourself, they can see you’ve got more to give and that maybe you should approach a subject in a slightly different way, and with the right encouragement and support you can do it! I learnt a lot from creating this book and not just about frogs, but about drawing too!

Playing by the book: Whilst researching your frogs, did you come across any other non-fiction illustrator’s work on frogs that really stood out for you?

Tim Hopgood: Oh yes – Art of the New Naturalists – Forms From Nature by Peter Marren and Robert Gillmor is an amazing non-fiction book for anyone interested in art and nature. I was given this book as a present and was inspired by the vitality of the drawings and the strong design compositions of the New Naturalist covers that are lovingly recorded in this book. It definitely influenced the way I approached the artwork for Fabulous Frogs: artwork for a non-fiction book doesn’t have to be clinical it can be painterly too. Combining expressive artwork with clear-cut information produces an interesting dynamic and that’s something I intend to explore in future projects.

Playing by the book: So apart from books used for researching for work, what role does non-fiction play in your own personal reading? Now, and as a child?

Tim Hopgood: As a child, non-fiction played a big part in my love of books. I struggled to learn to read and I struggled to find books that I enjoyed reading. I was always drawn to the non-fiction side of our local library, highly illustrated books on nature filled with facts had a particular appeal.

When I was nine, my parents bought me a hardback copy of ‘More Tell Me Why’ – Answers to over 400 questions children ask most often, by Arkady Leokum, published by Odhams Books. I loved that you could dip into it, that you didn’t have to start at the beginning and stick with it all the way through to make sense of it. You could flick through the pages and see something different each time you picked it up and I loved that it weighed a ton! And although it was heavy that didn’t stop me taking it to school and proudly reading from it in assembly!

Nowadays you’ll find plenty of non-fiction titles on my book shelves; mainly cookbooks (I recently completed over 100 illustrations for the new River Cottage cookbook ‘Love Your Leftovers’), but also lots of books on artists, designers, textiles and architecture. I still love the way you can dip in and out of a non-fiction title and discover new things each time you pick it up.

Playing by the book: One last and completely different question given that you are being interviewed on Playing by the book… what’s the last thing you did / place you visited / something you made for fun having been inspired by a book you’ve read?

Tim Hopgood: Now I feel very dull! I’m afraid it’s been all work and no play here recently, but when I’m not drawing I love to cook. For my birthday I was given ‘A Modern Way to Eat’ by Anna Jones – her Artichoke and fennel seed paella recipe is delicious!

Playing by the book: A book that makes you want to cook? That’s good enough for me! Thank you so very much Tim – here’s to frogs, fennel Seeds and further success in the future!

**********************

You can find out more about Tim Hopgood’s books on his website http://www.timhopgood.com/, and follow him on Twitter @TimHopgood.

Do look out for Tim’s new pre-school boardbook Walter’s Wonderful Web, and (like me) rejoice that his first three books are now all back in print!

Today’s interview is part of National Non-Fiction November, a month long celebration of non-fiction books for children and young people, set up by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Since I began championing children’s book on this website I’ve had a lovely game I indulgently play in my head: Who would I interview if I could interview anyone?

Over the years one name repeatedly popped up, but I didn’t dare act on my daydreams until very recently. It all started earlier this year when Dick King Smith’s The Rats of Meadowsweet Farm arrived on my desk. Published in a fantastic new edition by Barrington Stoke as part of their covetable Little Gems series, it featured illustrations by none other than the subject of my aforementioned daydreams: Victor Ambrus. Victor turned 80 this year, and I hadn’t realised that he was still working and so the flame on my candle of hope burned a little brighter, but my bravery still stumbled.

Then last month another Barrington Stoke book made its way into my hands. The Seal’s Fate by Eoin Colfer is also illustrated by Victor Ambrus, and I was so moved by the visual and verbal storytelling, it gave me the courage I needed. It’s a powerful book I’d really like to tell everyone about and it provided me with the final spur on to make an interview request.

Victor Ambrus has won the Kate Greenaway medal twice (for ‘The Three Poor Tailors’ [1965] and ‘Horses in Battle'[1975]) and has illustrated more than 300 books. His historical illustrations showing archaeological interpretations were featured on Channel 4’s Time Team for 20 years. Indeed, his passion for illustrating history has been central to his career, both in children’s book illustration and also in adult non-fiction. Ambrus’ animal illustrations are also especially highly regarded and have formed another constant strand in his work, from his illustrations for K.M. Peyton’s Flambards series right up to his two newest books with the grimy humour of the rats and the soft, sweet eyes of the seal.

And thus the time came for me to interview Victor over the phone. Victor was born in Hungary in 1935 and I started by asking what sort of reading life he had had as a child, what books he had loved. I was all ready to look up lots of Hungarian authors (and quite keen to do so, as I studied Hungarian literature at University) but “no, there were numerous books, but they were all English books – in translation of course. I was bought up on things like Winnie the Pooh!” Many were given to him as presents and one of his favourite books was Ursula Moray Williams’ ‘Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse’. It was, however, the books of Arthur Rackham that in many ways changed his life forever. “He was a huge influence on me… and he meant that I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil!”

Victor’s immediately family weren’t especially artistic (though he grew up with tales of a particularly talented uncle who had died young during the influenza epidemic following the First World War), but they were immensely supportive of Victor’s growing interest in drawing. Victor’s father, an industrial chemist, was especially encouraging: “He was convinced I was going to be an artist when I grew up.”

Victor’s passion for historical illustration was laid down as a child: “I just drew and drew and drew and enjoyed it. I illustrated anything that I read – books on history, poems… in fact I did a vast number of drawings of the fights we Hungarians had with the Turks in the 17th century.”

“But then there came a point where I had to enter grammar school. But I still kept drawing and drawing and eventually I got to a point where I could apply for the Academy of Fine Art, a very fine, traditional school offering a classical training in drawing, including anatomy and all sorts of things you don’t often get these days. But illustration per se didn’t come into my training actually. It was all terribly straight-laced. Illustration was just something I did for myself.”

Victor’s education and training at the Academy of Fine Art was cut short in awful circumstances. In 1956 the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and life in Budapest became very hard. There came a point where Victor had to make what he himself describes as “a kind of life or death decision”; to leave Hungary and seek refuge abroad.

“It was very demanding physical conditions. There was heavy snow you had to walk through all night to get across the border. It was a kind of life or death decision. I had to leave family behind. I actually had no choice. They had a list of people who were attempting to hold the Academy building against the Russian tanks. I was one of these people… but I did a very bad job at it. It was terribly frightening. Eventually they cornered us in the basement of the building and they executed eight of us on the spot – four students and four regular [Hungarian] army soldiers. I was lucky to survive it.”

Victor eventually made his way to the Austrian border and from there he chose to make England his new home, with the much-loved books and illustrations from his childhood very much in mind. He ended up in Farnham and from there applied to the Royal College of Art. Education there was quite different to that Victor had experienced in Budapest’s Academy of Fine Art: “The Royal College was very much more liberal. It was a kind of a loosening up process.”

Victor’s early work included a lot of lithographs and etchings. “Etchings have played a big influence in my life because they produce fine quality lines and nice deep tones which appeal to me, even though I haven’t made any for quite some time because of you need quite sophisticated machinery, making it hard to do at home. Still, I was almost addicted to using very fine lines and my early illustrations are very like etchings except that they were not actually printed etched into glass plates – rather, I just used a very fine nib.”

I’m very curious about this passion for etching and how that tallies with Victor’s style now which to me seems much more fluid, looser and more vibrant than is typically achieved with the precise lines in etching. Was this something Victor himself recognised? “Yes, I turned away from this approach, probably because of the subjects I was getting – I was getting a lot of free flowing, fast action historical illustrations, where people might be riding a horse or fighting, and to start using very fine etching lines was not practical. It took a long time and gave the wrong effect. It became very laboured.”

“And then at this time when I was getting going, colour illustration came in in a big way and so I got into colour and my approach changed somewhat. I’d draw things up very quickly in pencil making sure everything moved the way I wanted it to and then I’d apply colour and more sweeping lines. But thinking about colour… funnily enough I think black is a very important thing in my drawings. I like to have the impact of black in an illustration – once I have heavy black lines I can use more intense colours. In a way the black boosts the colours I use, it makes the colour really work.”

Victor uses ink and also water soluble pencils for his black lines and part of the secret to the way he uses them is that “the most intensive black goes down when the illustration is done – then I can see exactly where it is needed, where it needs a punch.”

But taking a step back, to explore a little further this change in approach, this development in Victor’s illustrative style. It was whilst at the Royal College that Victor had a stroke of luck which led to his breakthrough as a book illustrator. He was commissioned by Blackie and Sons to illustrate a book with a lot of horses – a love of Victor’s since his youth spent working on the great Hungarian plains where he would often witness large groups of semi-wild horses in their natural habitat. That books was White Horses and Black Bulls by Alan C Jenkins and on the back of a review in the Times Literary Supplement which included two of Victor’s illustrations (“It caused quite a stir!”) suddenly a stream of horse-related illustration commissions started flowing Victor’s way.

“Luckily I love drawing horses… why? because they are so complicated… so impressive!”

At that point, Victor couldn’t himself ride but as he received more and more historical illustration commissions he realised this would have to change if he wanted his pictures to be authentic; it was very important to him to accurately capture how people sit when they are riding.

This commitment to detail, this concern for accuracy is another mainstay in all of Victor’s work: “I really enjoy the research. It’s important as otherwise the illustrations don’t feel convincing. It’s got to be right!”

On occasion, however, this drive for authenticity has led him into a spot of bother: “Well I didn’t know how they used a sword on horseback. Now I happened to have a sword and so I took it out and practised with it. I rode in the local forest where there were a lot of pine trees and I would take aim at a branch, swipe at it and see what was the best way of cutting it. Oh I enjoyed it! But then I had to stop because one day a swipe revealed a white-faced mushroom picker who was scared out of his skin. I hadn’t realised he was there and at that point I thought I’d better not do this any more and so I put the sword away.”

Another area of great interest for Victor when it comes to illustration, especially historical illustration, is costume and clothing. Whilst he studied at the Royal College he spent many hours just down the road in the Victoria and Albert Museum. “I’d sooner illustrate any period but the modern because the clothes are boring – there’s no colour – whereas the 17th, 18th century… ah, they are fabulous!” I’m very sorry when later in our conversation I find out that Victor’s own wardrobe at home isn’t full of the colourful and rich outfits he loves to draw.

As well as historical illustrations, Victor has always enjoyed drawing animals. And not just horses. “I’ve spent a lot of time in zoos. One of my favourite drawings I did in London Zoo, of a fantastic male gorilla. He sat there and stared at me for a long time and when I finished the drawing and walked away he came up to the fence, right up to the edge. And other people nearby said, ‘Show him, show him your picture of him,’ and so I turned around and showed the picture to him and it was quite amazing. He took it all in, with his eyes wide open. I don’t know what he thought of it but he was definitely puzzled.”

Animals have not always been so appreciative of being drawn by Victor though. “Once I was drawing a lovely big parrot who was on the end of a long post, at the far end, and I was drawing him and enjoying myself until he started to move up the post step by step. He came right up close to me and then it was absolutely amazing – he looked at me and reached forward and took the pencil from my hand, snapped it into two and chucked it behind him and walked off! I thought it was a devastating piece of criticism of my efforts! I was utterly speechless!”

Being observed whilst drawing is something which has played an important role throughout Victor’s career. For many people, he will be most famous as the illustrator for Channel 4’s Time Team (one of my own favourite programmes as a child), where archaeologists had three days to excavate a site, and Victor would draw interpretations of the site and archaeological finds, being watched whilst he did so not only by members of the public visiting the excavations but also by millions on TV.

And it’s actually all thanks to The Reader’s Digest that Victor became part of the brilliant Time Team crew. One day in a Bristol library, the director of Time Team came across Victor’s illustrations in a history of Britain published by The Reader’s Digest. A phone call later and the two of them met. “‘Can you draw quickly?’ ‘Ah.. yes, I can try’ ‘Well, draw a portrait of me then,’ and so I drew a quick-as-lightning pencil drawing of him and he was suitably impressed and the following week I was invited to go to Oxfordshire…” and the rest, as they say, is history, with the programme running for 20 years.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to see places you’d never get to … all sorts of weird places and drawing all different things. Of course it was sometimes a bit of an ordeal because your hands get so cold drawing outside, but the hand-drawn illustrations brought something special – by being hand-drawn, the image is more alive, it is saying this how it could have been, whereas a computer printout will say this is how it was and there is no argument.”

Did Victor ever get to have a go at digging? “It appealed to me – oh yes – but they never let me near the ground. I used to try to persuade Phil Harding [one of the Time Team Archaeologists] to let me have a dig but he would snarl at me and tell me to keep my hands out of the ground and keep on with my drawing!”

And keeping on with his drawing is what Victor has been doing and continues to do, even as he enters his ninth decade. Recent commissions include creating illustrations for the museum at Athlone Castle in the Republic of Ireland, an opportunity to return to his beloved 17th century, horses and interesting clothes, but also a chance to steep himself in the landscape and people of Ireland – a boon when it came to illustrating his most recently published book for children, The Seal’s Fate. And right now he is steeped in the history of Somerset whilst he finishes off a big project for the Taunton Castle Museum, covering Somerset from its prehistory “up to Butlins!”

But being busy drawing makes Victor happy. “I couldn’t imagine it otherwise. I’d miss it if I wasn’t drawing. I’m just obsessed with drawing. Even when I’m not drawing I might be thinking about drawing.” And with 300 books and a lifetime of illustrating under his belt, what advice would he have for children who were interested in illustrating?

“Draw and draw and draw. And it’s important not just to do the drawing you have to do, but to draw for yourself, just to please yourself.”

***************

I’m indebted to Victor for being so generous with his time and stories from his life. When I asked him to check over my interview notes and make any changes he wished to see, the only thing he wanted to add was that he has “a lovely wife and two big sons.” This, to me, speaks volumes of Victor’s understated modesty, charm and warmth which I hope has come across in this dream-come-true disguised as an interview.

Display Comments Add a Comment

What great news! Today it has been announced that multi-award winning author Michael Morpurgo has donated his entire archive to Seven Stories, the UK’s National Centre for Children’s Books.

The archive contains draft manuscripts, photographs, notebooks and correspondence all the way back from his first publication ‘It Never Rained’ to his 2015 ‘An Eagle in the Snow’ as well as material relating to his his widely known and admired works such as ‘War Horse’ and ‘Private Peaceful’.

To mark this brilliant news I was able to put a few questions to Michael about his archive.

Playing by the book: What’s the oldest item in your archive which you’ve donated to Seven Stories? Perhaps something you wrote as a child? School reports?

Michael Morpurgo: I suppose I would be going back to about 1970, and I’ve been writing since then. They are scribbles, but they are there.

Playing by the book: What do you think people might be surprised by when they look at your archive?

Michael Morpurgo: The mess! I was just looking at notebooks then and thinking what a jostle of impressions and efforts… the little psychological boosts I give myself. For instance at the end of half an hour or a page I count up a word tally and it gives me an absurd sense of satisfaction; to know at the end of the day I’ve done 1,000 or 2,000 words and how encouraging this is for me.

Aside from the mess, how fluent I can be when I’m working well and how tentative and trembly I can be when it’s not moving necessarily the way I want it to move. And there’s the awful moment when you’ve done too much writing the day before and you can tell the writing gets faster and faster and faster towards 4 o’clock and then you stop and look back the next day and think – of course I should have stopped at lunchtime, because the last three hours were rubbish! Then there’s the great lines through it. There are also the moments you re-trace your life and I rather like that.

Playing by the book: What will you do with all the space created by gifting your archive to Seven Stories?

Michael Morpurgo: Fill it up! It’s already filling up with new manuscripts and other things. Don’t you find that at home when you want to clear a room, you just clear it up for it to fill with other stuff? But the great thing about this is that now it will serve a useful purpose. It really will be useful. There will be some people down the line who will want to know how this particular writer worked out why he would write that story and how he set about it. And I love that – I love that people might have an insight into how that happened, especially when you aren’t around to tell them.

My thanks go to Michael for his generosity in answering my questions and also to Damien Wootten for the photographs from Seven Stories today.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Let me introduce to you a debut children’s book creator who I think is most definitely one to watch.

Earlier this year David Barrow (@DaveBarrow3) won The Sebastian Walker Award – given to the most promising new talent to be found in what is arguably one of the UK’s finest nurturing grounds for creators of art in children’s books, the Masters in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art.

To be only a few months post graduation, and in receipt of several publishing deals with a variety of publishers says something about how lots and lots of people think there is something special about Barrow. This month has seen the publication of his brilliant and beautiful Have You Seen Elephant? (with Gecko Press), and a two book deal with Hodder has also been announced.

In the joyously absurd and richly expressed Have You Seen Elephant? we watch a young boy and an elephant play hide and seek. Despite what you might think, the elephant is exceptionally good at hiding, creating lots of opportunity for laughter and delight. Brilliant comic timing with just a few finely honed words suggests that Barrow is as good at writing as he is at illustrating.

And his illustrations? His gorgeously textured artwork feels truly alive. His ability to capture light in his muted palette is especially effective. His restrained use of colour works as a powerful juxtaposition to the wonderful outrageousness of the story.

Two aspects of Have You Seen Elephant? really fill my heart with delight. First, the playfulness of the book – the willingness of the reader to suspend reality, and play the game (“not seeing” what we can all see). A sort of self delusion of the most enjoyable type – something which reminded me of some of Hervé Tullet’s work eg Press Here – where readers joyously suspend belief to enter into the spirit of the book. I asked Barrow why he thought we (both adults and children) enjoy pretending so much?

“I think you’ve hit the nail on the head when you say that you have to enter a state of self-delusion when reading Have You Seen Elephant? I tried to make it as ambiguous as possible. Can the boy really see the Elephant and is just playing along to spare the Elephant’s feelings? Can the adults see the Elephant? Is the boy really that bad or the Elephant really that good at Hide and Seek? I don’t know the answer! I’m hoping that the ambiguity gives the audience the option to read the book in any way they deem fit to. I think the enjoyment comes from the ability to recognise the absurdity of the situation. It’s fun to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride!”

A second aspect that made me truly happy was how Barrow chose to depict the little boy who looks for Elephant. Books with non-white characters, where the story isn’t about diversity, are sadly still quite unusual. I wondered what sort of debates (if any) Barrow had with himself and /or his publisher for this book, Gecko Press, about this.

“The little boy’s depiction actually came about fairly unconsciously. I was looking for a protagonist for the story and therefore experimenting (doodling) in my sketchbook. I only had two prerequisites for the character. One, it had to be a boy. Two, as he was never going to actually be formally introduced in the text, he had to have instant “personality”. I looked over the studies I had drawn and he was an instant winner!

It was a bit like casting for an acting role. With fewer parameters set, it meant the potential field was wider open. When he walked through the door I felt he had enough character to take the starring role! And Julia at Gecko agreed. To flesh him out a bit, I created a whole back story with his family. Considering we never actually find out his name he has a fairly comprehensive family tree!

I am a huge fan of Ezra Jack Keats’ picture book character, Peter, so perhaps that was a subconscious influence. I think a worthwhile picture book should be a reflection of the world we live in. And the world we live in is pretty diverse! “

I was so impressed with Barrow’s début that I wanted to find out much more about his path to becoming an illustrator. I asked him to share 8 books (children’s or otherwise) that reflected key points in the path that led him to where he is now. His selection of books is varied and really interesting – I can guarantee there will be at least one that you want to go and find out more about!

So over to David:

The first book I have any recollection of is The Runaway Roller Skate by John Vernon Lord. According to my parents I was mildly obsessed with every detail (and there is a lot of detail). I would read it to them rather than the other way around which I’m sure they were thrilled about every night. It’s probably where my fixation with poring manically over illustrations comes from.

I remember the first book where the images made me think “Wow”, was The Hare and the Tortoise illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. Again, I can recall obsessing over every image. The animal characterisations, the intense patterns, the vibrant colours! I can even remember the smell of the pages.

I was an avid collector of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy series when I was at school. I never was particularly interested in the gaming element of the books. I would rarely use a die to “test my luck”. What I really loved were the brash covers especially those of Ian Miller, but even more so the black and white line drawings inside.

I was an overtly harsh critic of the illustrations and remember being disappointed if I thought certain books weren’t up to standard. How precocious of me! This was probably the first time when I considered illustration to be a fairly cool job. Drawing dragons and orcs all day? I could do that. But then I was lured in by the bright lights and excitement of becoming a graphic designer…

Straight after University, resolute in the fact that I definitely didn’t want to be a graphic designer despite spending 3 years studying it, I got a job working for an education library service. The job entailed logging all the books that came off the mobile library. Basically, it meant I and my colleague spent all day reading picture books. I’ve had worse jobs.

It was a brilliant opportunity to revisit and reconnect with books and authors from my childhood. One such author was David McKee. Humour is a massively important thing generally in life, but in picture books the master of funny for me is McKee. The quiet tragi-comedy of Not Now Bernard is classic, but my favourite of his books has to be The Sad Story of Veronica Who Played the Violin: Being an Explanation of Why the Streets Are Not Full of Happy Dancing People. It’s basically a shaggy-dog story but with the most brilliantly downbeat punch line ever. I remember doing a full-on belly laugh when I read it in the library. Luckily nobody shushed me.

When I worked as a production manager in commercial print I was involved in the manufacture of many books. It was here I developed a greater understanding of their anatomy, but more importantly a massive appreciation for their actual physicality. There is nothing quite like the feel (and smell) of a beautifully constructed book. For me, the best books utilise their tangible nature; they use the whole experience of holding a book, the physical action of turning a page, to enhance the content.

An amazing example of how the construct of a book is intrinsic to its story-telling is Leon and Bob by Simon James. It is large and tall in format and as a result makes the young protagonist Leon appear tiny on the page in this exaggerated adult environment. It is a tale of a boy’s loneliness and through the design and layout which expand upon James’ wonderfully understated illustrations; the reader can recognise Leon’s solitude. Even the endpapers are used to emphasise the themes of the story. It starts with an empty urban park, really setting the scene before the story has even begun, and ends with a joyous game of football between the two new friends Leon and Bob. This understanding of the physical quality of books and how this can augment story-telling has now become vitally important to me.

I was introduced to the work of Jean-Jacques Sempé during a presentation by the fantastic illustrator, Helen Stephens. She was showing some of Sempé’s New Yorker covers as something that had inspired her work and I was fascinated by his charming, lively, infinitely detailed vistas. I immediately went out and bought A Little Bit of France (although any of collections are equally brilliant).

Sempé is amazing at creating a sense of place in his illustrations. They are always gentle, domestic, quiet reflections. He can convey beauty in everyday life and is another master of quiet humour. His work has become a big influence on the way I attempt to portray ordinary situations in a hopefully unordinary way.

I am a recent convert to world of graphic novels, and like everything else in my life, I am now mildly obsessed with this form of storytelling. Through my compulsive research I have discovered artists such as Brecht Evens and Jorgé Gonzalez who are producing some of the most visually stunning and exciting works around in my opinion.

A particular favourite at present is King Kong illustrated by Christophe Blain. A mixture between a graphic novel and a picture book, it has some atmospherically stunning artwork. It uses muted colours and strikingly simple compositions that really enhance the dramatic sense of scale. It has made an impact on how I compose a page through simple shapes. Unfortunately, it’s out of print and on the rare occasion it does come up for sale it costs a small fortune. So you’ll have to take my word for its magnificence!

When I was making Have You Seen Elephant? I remember seeing The Storm Whale by Benji Davies. I was positively blown away by its quality. It was everything I admired in picture book making. Charming characterisation, flashes of quiet humour, tender domesticity drawn wonderfully with a beautifully muted palette. It became an inspiration and an aspiration to create something as subtly enchanting as that.

*******************

David’s book choice and biography are both so interesting, don’t you think? Even though he had already been so generous I had to ask him a couple of final questions – about whether as a child he ever “lived” (or “played”) any books that he had read, and what was the last book he had read which inspired him to go and do something as a result of the words and/or images it contained.

As I mentioned before I used to collect the Fighting Fantasy series by Jackson and Livingstone. I have a memory from about 8 years old, of being in the garden and making my Mum read out Forest of Doom whilst I acted out the turn of events. If I was attacked by a Barbarian, I would physically fight the imaginary foe. If I fell down a trap door, I would mime the falling and inevitable bone-crunching landing. I think my Mum was quite embarrassed by my RADA-esque improvisational skills so we didn’t do it for very long. Which was a shame. But it is my most defined recollection of being totally engrossed in my own imagination. I’ve tried to retain that ability to fully surrender myself to my imagination. Only now I do it in my sketchbook. And perhaps when no-one is watching I’ll have a go at that Barbarian.

I recently bought a massive compendium of Myths and Legends by Anne Terry White which makes for great bedtime reading and has really fired up the old creative juices. When I get a spare minute I intend to do some personal illustration work, perhaps even printmaking, and try and depict a few of the classics. The illustrations in this particular tome are by Alice and Martin Provensen so I’ve set myself a real challenge rivalling any of their masterpieces!

My huge thanks go to David Barrow for taking the time to generously answer all my questions today. I can only urge you all to find a copy of Have You Seen Elephant? without delay! I really think Barrow is destined for even more great things.

Add a Comment

Nick Sharratt has loved drawing for as long as he can remember and is now one of the most widely recognised illustrators in the UK. He’s worked in partnership with everyone from Jacqueline Wilson to Julia Donaldson, although my personal favourites are the books he’s created with Pippa Goodhart: You Choose and Just Imagine.

Sharratt has also illustrated several poetry anthologies, but this month sees the publication of a poetry collection he’s not only illustrated, but also written. Vikings in the Supermarket is a zany and eclectic mix of poems featuring tartan moggies, tidy pirates and a queen who loves green. To celebrate Sharratt’s first ever collection of poetry and National Poetry Day I recently had the opportunity to put a few questions to him. Here’s how our interview went:

Playing by the book: Have you found any ways in which writing poetry is similar to illustration? How are they different / similar?

Nick Sharratt: They’re similar in that there’s a huge amount of preparatory work involved for both: lots of rough drawings and lots of rough drafts. They’re different in that when I start an illustration I have a fairly precise idea in my head of how I want the finished image to look and it’s a matter of getting that down on paper, whereas with poetry, other than a vague theme in mind, I usually have no idea of what I’m after, or where the words will end up taking me. I feel a lot less in control. Ideas for lines will pop into my head at the most unlikely times, whereas I don’t ponder on how to resolve illustration issues outside of my studio.

Playing by the book: What helped you most when writing this collection of poetry? Did you have a particular inspiration? Was there a setting that worked especially well? Did you have input from friends?

Nick Sharratt: Witnessing young children’s excitement at a Vikings exhibition in Edinburgh made me keen to do something with Viking characters. Mermaids, pirates and kings and queens are simply favourite subjects to draw, so I worked away until I had poems for each of them. ‘A Tartan Tale’ could just have been inspired by having moved to Scotland a couple of years ago!

I always test out poems on friends by getting them to read them out loud – they are very tolerant and prepared for my grumpiness if the words don’t flow as I want them to!

Playing by the book: Other than your own, what poetry for children holds a special place in your heart? (eg from your own childhood, or that you’ve discovered as an adult)

Nick Sharratt: My all-time favourite poetry book has to be Spike Milligan’s Silly Verse for Kids. I was given a copy when I was seven or eight and it was so different to any book I’d ever read, I was bowled over. Fantastically readable and recitable poems, brilliant humour (even if I didn’t quite understand one or two of the jokes until I was older) and funny pictures to boot. I can remember the words to just about every poem.

Playing by the book: In a sense, you’ve come full circle: the first picture book you illustrated was a book of poetry, and now your own collection of poetry is being published. How do you think you’ve changed as book creator (or co-creator) in the intervening 28 odd years? What has changed for the better about the publishing industry? What changes would you still like to see?

Nick Sharratt: It really is full circle: David Fickling was the editor of that first book, Noisy Poems, and now he’s the publisher of this first collection. It’s incredible to think that so many years have gone by. I don’t think that I’ve changed particularly as a book creator. Each project remains an adventure. Starting the illustration work on a new book is still daunting. I’ve yet to land on any trusty formula for coming up with great book ideas, other than to begin by groping around with little more than a sense of what won’t work, rather than what will.

Publishing trends come and go and of course there have been many changes in the world of children’s books but I really don’t feel they have influenced my own work greatly. The goal remains the same: to create books that work successfully with children.

Playing by the book: As a child were there any books you liked to “play” (ie act out, or respond to in some creative way) – my blog is called Playing by the book and is all about my family’s art/craft/dramatic/playful responses to the books we’ve read. So were there books which took over your imagination and you made “real” in some sense? If so, could you share a little about them and what you did?

Nick Sharratt: Oh dear, I’ve really struggled to think but I can’t recall any games inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Stig of the Dump, The Railway Children, or any of my favourite childhood books. My brother, sisters and I were pretty imaginative and created lots of games based on 70s TV programmes like It’s a Knockout, The Generation Game and Dr Who, but not on what we were reading. Maybe that’s because TV watching was a shared activity but for each of the four of us reading was a personal, private matter and we had quite different tastes. Although we were keen readers I don’t remember us ever discussing our books together.

There’s no doubting, however, that poring over the illustrations in my books is what triggered my ambition to become an illustrator myself.

Many thanks to Nick Sharratt for stopping by Playing by the Book today and taking the time to answer my questions. Wishing Nick and you all a very happy National Poetry Day!

http://nicksharratt.com/
@NickSharratt1

Display Comments Add a Comment

Ed Vere has been an illustrator to watch from the start.

He won his first award with his very first book.

He’s been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Award and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.

The award for largest single print run for a picture book in the UK goes to his wonderful Mr Big (one of the first books to be reviewed on Playing by the book!)

Ed’s most recently created character is one sure to win hearts: Max is a fearless, adventurous kitten, a kitten who will melt your hearts. We first met Max last year and now he’s back, ready to see what the night holds for him as he tries very hard to fall asleep.

Once again packed with charm and laugh-out-loud moments, Max at Night reveals what the curious kitten gets up to when his bedtime routine doesn’t go quite to plan. To celebrate the book’s publication I’m delighted to bring you an interview with Ed Vere. I should have asked him about when his bedtime routine fails, but instead we ending up talking about Belloc and tractors, travelling and epic quests…

Playing by the book: What’s the first book you were aware of? A book you loved? A book you hated? A book that baffled you?

Ed Vere: I think probably Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary tales. I remember my father’s tone of voice as he read them aloud to me and my brother. He read them with great relish and theatricality. Belloc, has a particular teasing quality to his writing, which my father was very good at capturing. He also liked making use of the pregnant pause… ramping up the anticipation. I still love reading these tales, they make me laugh, and they remind me of a particular side of my father.

For anyone who doesn’t know it, I would suggest searching out ‘Jim – Who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion.’

Playing by the book: If Ed the kid could see Ed the grown up, what would he make of where he is at now and what he is doing?

Ed Vere: I wanted to be an artist from an early age, either that or a farmer… so I think the younger me (I’m thinking of me at about 7 years old) would be very happy that I make my living by drawing pictures and telling stories. The young me would also be highly impressed by all the pens and paints I’ve accumulated over the years. He might also think that I ought to be living on a farm, tending the cows, lifting hay bales and driving tractors… but I’d have to tell him that there’s only so much time in the day.

Playing by the book: If Ed the grown up could go back to Ed the kid and give him some advice, or a book to read, what would Ed the Grown up say/give to Ed the kid?

Ed Vere: I’d say draw and paint as much as you can… take it seriously sometimes, because there’s no reason why you can’t do serious things at a young age. I’d say learn to play an instrument, preferably the piano… and I’d also say, have fun with it all!

I’d give the young lad the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I still haven’t read it but I think young me would have really enjoyed it.

Playing by the book: If someone were to create an illustrated biography of your life, who would you like to illustrate it (or different periods in your life) and why?

Ed Vere: Well, if I can shoot for the moon I’d say Art Spiegelman. Maus is a work of complete genius, and told so empathetically. If he told the story of my life, not that it’s interesting or significant enough, I’m sure I’d learn a lot I don’t know about myself.

It would also be pretty good if Javier Mariscal could do a chapter for the years that I lived in Barcelona.

Playing by the book: In what ways is Max like you?

Ed Vere: Hmmm, that’s a tricky one. My friends tell me that all my characters have something of me in them. I guess Max must have too. I suppose the way he’s most like me is that we both like to find things out… we’re curious about life, and what might be around the next corner. I’m less bothered about chasing mice though.

Playing by the book: I hear you’re working on Max No. 3, but what about other book projects? Do you like to have several things on the go at once, or do you tend to focus on a single book at a time?

Ed Vere: That’s right, in fact I’ve just finished Max number 3… I loved making it… a lot of fun, and a story that’s a little more complex… with a bit of jeopardy thrown in! It’ll be interesting to see how it goes down.

I have many ideas all bubbling away at the same time, too many. It takes a long time and a lot of thinking / procrastinating to find the right idea to go forward with. But I only ever work on one book at a time. I need to keep the focus and continuity going with one thing, so I can maintain the right energy through the whole project. I’m not a great multi-tasker.

Playing by the book: So you’re here being interviewed on Playing by the book… what’s the last thing you did / place you visited / something you made having been inspired by a book you’ve read?

Ed Vere: What a great question, and not an easy one to answer… There are so many books that have influence, indirectly, over your life… Thinking of one that had such a powerfully direct & immediate effect is hard. Possibly the answer would be more a way of thinking than a direct action, an approach to the way I live my life. The book is ‘The Songlines’ by Bruce Chatwin. It talks about our instinct for nomadism, which comes from pre-agrarian revolution times when we were wandering the plains hunting and gathering. He starts the book travelling to Australia to research the Aboriginal concept of Songlines… The routes walked by the ancestors who sang the world into creation and that are still traversed by Aborigines today, handed down generation after generation. Travelling was an essential part of life, for many reasons… to discover the world, to trade, to find food sources, to widen the gene pool. The second half of the book is a collection of writings by himself and others talking about Nomadism in different cultures and through the ages. It rang true in many ways for me, and I suppose it’s effect is an approach to life which is a little freer and less tied down. If that makes any sense?

Many thanks to Ed for today’s interview. Here’s the US book trailer for the first Max story:

You can catch up with Ed here:
Ed’s website
Ed on Twitter
Ed on Facebook

Display Comments Add a Comment

Michael Foreman is someone rather special.

He’s often described as a “national institution”, with a 50 year back catalogue of tremendous books for children and young people. I, however, think this is perhaps a little too staid a description for someone who has such sparkle in his eyes and who gently radiates a real sense of joie de vivre, hopefulness, and energy when you hear him speak about his work. Foreman may have turned 77 earlier this year, but his illustration and storytelling continues to innovate and be full of forward looking optimism, alongside the beauty and wonder which was there from the beginning.

Twice a winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, once in 1982 for the anthology “Long Neck and Thunder Foot -Sleeping Beauty and other favourite fairy tales” and then again in 1989 for War Boy: A Country Childhood, my own introduction to Foreman’s books as a child was through the eyes of a dinosaur and a panda: The copies from my 1970s childhood of Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish and “Panda’s Puzzle” are still much loved, not least by my own children.

I’m not a great one for the cult of celebrity, but I’m humbled and excited beyond measure to bring you today an interview with Michael Foreman, an author and illustrator whose stories have become embedded in my life, bringing it richness and – in both a literal and metaphorical sense – lasting colour.

Playing by the book: War Game, War Boy and After the War was Over are gifts to the interviewer. Your childhood home, life and extended family play an enormously important role in your work it seems to me. There’s a real grounding in a location and time that echoes through your work. And yet, alongside this inward reflection, there’s a big, wide-open view onto the wider world – a curiosity about our planet, a passion for travel, a keen interest in sharing this wider world with us your readers, a passion just as strong as for seasides, Suffolk and your family. How has this ability to look generously in both directions come about do you think? I’ve wondered if it has something to do with the way the world came to you during the war, with soldiers and POWs from all over passing through your home village.

Michael Foreman: Absolutely, yes. Family has been enormously important to me. The connections between generations – a sense of Time and Place. The questions my children have asked over the years – heightened now that we have new grandchildren – another rich source of stories.

Playing by the book: A wonderful animation was made of War Game and I understand there were plans for animated versions of War Boy and After the War too. What happened to these plans?

Michael Foreman: Nothing as yet, unfortunately. They are still awaiting funding.

Playing by the book: I do hope they get funded – I think they have such great potential. Having worked on animated films yourself in Denmark, what was the experience like for you to see one of your books re-imagined in another medium? (This stands for both War Game and The General, although I haven’t been able to track down a copy of the latter’s animation).

Michael Foreman: I was, of course, delighted that someone thought enough of the books to devote time and expertise to give my stories another life.

Playing by the book: These three books are all in one way or another about or inspired by your own family. Have you done any genealogical research further back in time, before your uncles’ generation?

Michael Foreman: One of my nephews has done quite a bit of research but it really just unearths earlier generations of fisher-folk.

Playing by the book: How would you feel if the makers of ‘Who do you think you are?’ approached you? Would you consider writing an up-to-date autobiography, including some of the more curious aspects of your career as a writer and illustrator? I’m sure there are some interesting stories to tell and scenes to paint from having worked at Playboy, with JG Ballard at Ambit magazine, for the police drawing female suspects when Identikit only catered for men and even working in the education/outreach department of Chelsea football club!

Michael Foreman: In October, Pavilion Books are publishing a retrospective view of many of the books I have done for them. War Boy, War Game, etc plus collaborations with Terry Jones and Michael Morpurgo, Edna O’Brien, Madhur Jaffrey, etc and classics like ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘The Wind in the Willows,’ and two collections of Fairy Tales. The book, ‘A Life in Pictures’ also touches on some of my travels and working for magazines around the world.

Playing by the book: In the forthcoming exhibition at Seven Stories I understand there will be some sort of re-creation of your studio. Can you share a little bit about your favourite materials to work with – what sort of paper you like (what paper is good for different projects), what pencils and watercolours are your favourite for studio work, or for sketching on location? What is your top tip for anyone (but particularly children) who want to try out watercolour painting?

Michael Foreman: I am reluctant to give tips to anyone – I feel it is important to be able to draw well – but, I’m not sure it’s taught in Art Schools these days.

Playing by the book: Over time it seems to me you’ve used some unusual art materials – here those liquorice comforts pop up again, and I’d be more than game for seeing if they still make great face paint, or can even be used on paper. Then there’s the biscuit tin paper linings you used as a child for drawing on, and I’ve also read you’ve used coffee grounds to create certain effects in your paintings. What other unusual art materials have you enjoyed / do you enjoy using?

Michael Foreman: I often use water colours because it allows the whiteness of the paper to shine through and illuminate the colours. Build up the colour from the back, layer upon layer. Sometimes the colours flow into one another, surprising you, sometimes disastrously, sometimes wonderfully. Go with the flow. You can always revert to a bit of acrylic to paint out mistakes which don’t work.

In some of my early books, I used some collage – ‘The Two Giants’ and ‘War and Peas’ and, in ‘Mia’s Story’ I used scrap paper picked up from a rubbish dump in Santiago in Chile.

Alan Garner’s ‘Stone Book’ quartet, I illustrated with etchings.

Playing by the book: Although blue is something of a signature colour for you, I think the choice of “Under the Rainbow” as a title for your new exhibition is wonderfully apt, for your use of the whole spectrum of colours is something very special (a personal favourite is the image from The Day the Sun Hid, where tremendous blues and greys are offset by rainbow coloured weaving in the traditional clothing of the people of Sikkim). With this in mind, I wanted to ask you something about your many illustrations which are reproduced in greyscale, often illustrating longer novels (sometimes by Michael Morpurgo). Are these created in greys, or simply reproduced this way? When you know an illustration is going to be reproduced using greyscale, do you approach it in a different way to when it will be printed full colour? For example, do you make more use of pencil lines?

Michael Foreman: When working in black and white, the line becomes more important. Sometimes, I use only line, building up the form by the traditional method of cross-hatching. Usually, I use pen and black water colour wash. Sometimes a book illustrated in full colour is reprinted later in paperback in grey scale. This can be with disappointing results as the paper used is often inferior to that used for colour printing and some of the strength of contrast can be lost. When setting out to illustrate in grey scale, you can make sure the contrast is strong enough to compensate for any loss in the printing.

Playing by the book: In the recently published 100 Great Children’s Picture Books, Martin Salisbury chose your book “The General”, describing it as one of your “finest achievements”. Whilst a first book will always have a special place in any illustrator’s heart, is it the one book of your own you would pick above all others? (I know asking anyone to choose their favourite book is somewhat unfair; here I am curious to see, from an illustration point of view which book(s) you are especially proud of, particularly challenged you, changed you in some way).

Michael Foreman: I didn’t know Martin Salisbury had described my first book, ‘The General’ as one of my ‘finest achievements.’ Flattering, but does this mean he thinks I haven’t got any better in 50 years?

I wouldn’t want to pick a ‘best book,’ but a favourite would be ‘War Boy’ because it is about my mum and people I love. I am pleased that ‘Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish’ has lasted so long, and ‘A Child’s Garden’ and Michael Morpurgo’s ‘The Mozart Question’ are among my favourites, and were very moving to do.

Playing by the book: And finally… Having watched lots of videos of you, seen you talk about your work, and reading between the lines in your books, you come across as an optimistic person, a glass-half full type (perhaps because of your early brush with death in the form of a near miss with an incendiary bomb?). In all the films I’ve seen, you’ve a sparkle in your eye and a glint of something quite playful (how you talk about crawling between old ladies’ legs in your Mother’s shop, or the delight and shock in Miss West’s periwinkle long drawers). In a day and age where there is much to depress us, especially when we consider conflict and the environment, and our lack of empathy for others – all themes in your forthcoming Seven Stories exhibition – how do you keep the sparkle? How can we help ourselves and our children keep believing in better, keep ourselves hopeful? What would you write on the Tree of Hope which I understand is going to be a central feature to which all exhibition visitors will be invited to contribute?

Michael Foreman: Yes, surviving the bomb at the age of three did give me a perspective on life. I try to appreciate every moment.

The world is full of ideas and people are full of stories and some stories demand to be told, need to be shared. I have been so fortunate to be given the opportunity to share some of my hopes and dreams with children. We must give our children endless hope and love so that they can be at peace with each other and that they can make their world a happy place.

With regard to my message on the Tree of Hope, my wish would be that the seeds from this tree of hope spread far and wide.

****************

I’m extremely grateful to Michael for taking the time to answer my questions. The interview was carried out in celebration of ‘Under the Rainbow’ – a new exhibition opening at Seven Stories, the UK’s National Centre for Children’s Books on the 19th of July.

Through the exhibition Michael’s books are used to ask readers to consider the consequences of conflict, the fragility of our environment and the importance of friendship, empathy and tolerance through his insightful storytelling and beautiful illustrations. Families will be invited to add to the ‘Tree of Hope’ with messages for the future; explore stories of war and peace through War Boy, War Game, The General and Ali Pasha, build and play in a multi-sensory environment inspired by Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish and One World, and be inspired by Michael’s creative process in his artist’s studio with his own personal artefacts.

I shall be visiting the exhibition in mid August and will report back! I really can’t wait

If you’d like to receive all my posts from this blog please sign up by inputting your email address in the box below:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Add a Comment

Last weekend saw the first birthday of the book group I run for 8-12 year olds at the local public library. On Saturday we celebrated with lots of games – book spine poetry and book charades (where titles had to be those of books we had read or discussed during the past year in book group) causing the most laughter. There were also lots of bookish treats:

On Monday we had an amazing trip to a local arts festival where we saw Michael Morpurgo retell his book The Mozart Question, accompanied by a fabulous set of musicians who played music matching the storyline. The show was wonderful, powerful and moving and Michael very generously made time for the children in my book group to interview him over a slice or two of birthday cake – what better first birthday present could there be?

Members of the book group presented Michael with a copy of the anthology they’ve written this year, and which they have been selling to family and friends to raise money for Michael’s charity Farms For City Children. They had each practised their “author signature” and signed the anthology. It was a proud moment to see it in Michael’s hands!

Before the fun and games on Saturday we spend some time preparing for our interview with Michael by reading lots of past interviews with him, highlighting things we found interesting and making a note of questions that we couldn’t find answers for. I found this a really effective way of encouraging the group to think of questions more unusual than the ones that so often arise when authors do a Q&A with children, such as “Why did you become a writer?” or “What tips do you have for aspiring authors?”.

Looking back over the year, it’s a delight to see how the book group as grown. Initially it was a determined, constructive response to my eldest being bullied at school for being a bookworm, and out of that stressful situation something lovely has blossomed. I’ve been supported along the way by many people and I’m really grateful to them all, especially the authors and illustrators with whom the book group has tweeted and the library staff who have helped with book reservations.

Add a Comment

One of the big (and to some, surprising) hits of English language children’s publishing in 2013-2014 was a novel originally written in 1962 by an author very few people in the UK or the US had ever heard of. However, on its publication here, it was greeted with virtually universal acclaim, featuring in many “best of the year” book lists. In a matter of months reprints were ordered more than once.

That book was The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt, available for the first time in English thanks to multi-award winning translator Laura Watkinson and Pushkin Press, a publisher committed to bringing more international classics to an audience notoriously wary of translations.

The Letter for the King is widely recognised in its home country, The Netherlands, as the best children’s book ever to be written in Dutch. And it’s success in the UK suggests that children here love it just as much as they do across the North Sea. My family, with one foot in each country, doubly loves the book, it having been a bedtime read multiple time in both languages.

So you can imagine my sheer delight when I opened a parcel on Friday to find it contained a proof of the bestseller’s sequel: The Secrets of the Wild Wood.

This really is one of the most exciting moments of my book-ish year. If anything, the sequel is even better than The Letter for the King; and I can say this having now read (or listened to) both books in both languages. Few sequels surpass their predecessors, but for my money The Secrets of the Wild Wood stakes an astonishingly good claim to doing just that.

Whilst a review will take some time to brew as I go back and look more in detail at the translation and let the (English language) story settle in my head and heart, I wanted to mark this very exciting occasion somehow. My excitement spurred me on to approach Pjotr van Lenteren, a Dutch journalist, who had the very good fortune to interview Tonke Dragt earlier this year. I asked if I might translate the resulting article (which originally appeared in the Dutch broadsheet Volkskrant) and very generously he agreed, so today I’m thrilled to bring you something very special and very rare – an interview with Tonke Dragt.

Tonke Dragt: My knights’ tales belong in England

By Pjotr van Lenteren 5 January 2015,
[originally published in the Volkskrant, available at http://www.volkskrant.nl/boeken/tonke-dragt-mijn-ridderboeken-horen-thuis-in-engeland~a3822758/

]

Children’s writer Tonke Dragt (84) has finally conquered England: The Letter for the King has been a success for more a year. In this rare interview she tells us how things stand with her.

‘So, now I’ll stop complaining’, says Tonke Dragt after talking continuously for quarter of an hour. Not so long ago the 84 year old children’s writer moved house to a private nursing home, because her previous one went bankrupt. Her arthritis has worsened and since Dragt broke her foot in inexplicable circumstances a month ago, she can barely walk any more.

‘I find the nights the hardest. I often don’t feel like going to sleep, but there’s nothing to do. I read a lot. The Scarlet Pimpernel for example, for old time’s sake, and to balance it out the Tao te Ching. They’re trying their best here, but sometimes I get really fed up with everything. That I’ve got physical difficulties, that’s clear, but sometimes they treat me as if my mind isn’t good either. They only believe I’ve written books when it is in the newspapers.’

She may have physical difficulties, but mentally the creator of the Letter for the King (1962), one of the best know Dutch children’s books, crowned with the Griffel of Griffels [each year the best Dutch children’s book of that year is crowned with a Golden Griffel (stylus), and in 2004 Letter for the King was picked as the best ever winner of a Golden Griffel / zt] is still her old self. She is enthusiastic about her late breakthrough in England. The Letter for the King has been a runaway success now for a year. ‘Yes, what can I say about it? I’m really delighted. Finally!’

So happy that she has – exceptionally – granted an interview. The fact that it has been published at all is something special; only 3% of books published in the UK are translations. In Germany, children can get all of Dragt’s books, in Spain more than half of her books are available. An edition has appeared in Indonesia, where Dragt grew up, and also one in the land of the occupiers at that time: Japan. [During the Second World War Dragt was imprisoned as a child in a Japanese camp in the then Dutch East Indies / zt]

The Letter for the King tells the story of Tiuri, a squire. On the eve before he is knighted, he leaves the chapel where he is holding a vigil, because someone asks him for help. A quest, which closely mirrors the classic knights’ tales which are so popular in the land of King Arthur and Tolkien.

But the only book of hers available in English until recently was the little read 1975 American translation of her science fiction book, The Towers of February. ‘That the English didn’t want The Letter for the King, I’ve never understood, to be honest. I have always felt that my knight tales belong there.”

The book was offered multiple times by her publishers, once indeed with a letter of recommendation from the famous English fantasy writer Alan Garner. “That time I got the parcel back with the wrapping torn open. Jolly good, I thought, they’ve opened it. It was the first time they’d done so, but even then they thought the cost of translation was too high.”

The 52-year-old spell was broken by Laura Watkinson, a Netherlands-based translator, who sent the first chapters in English to Adam Freudenheim of Pushkin Press, a publishing house specialising in translations of international classics, who had just launched a children’s imprint.

When one night his kids secretly pinched the manuscript in order that they could read more from it, he was won over. “They were delighted,” says Dragt. “They thought it was like Harry Potter. That’s nonsense of course – there are no knights in Harry Potter and in the Letter for the King no wizards. Oh well. They were going to publish it. Fine with me.”

And as to sales figures too, the Brits were proved wrong: All the major papers wrote glowingly about the book, the third printing was in the the shops before Christmas, and Watkinson is now dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of its sequel: The Secrets of the Wild Wood.

‘Yes, I’m pleased. Really pleased. It’s finally done. Although… maybe my other books will find favour too. Sky High and Miles Wide, for example. [Dutch: Torenhoog en mijlenbreed / zt]. Who knows? I can dream about it, can’t it? I have to keep my mind a little bit busy to forget the failings of my body. It’s always good to have something to look forward to.’

She hopes to be able to return at some point to her own home, now modified, and to be amongst her own books and the collages that she’s been working on during the past few years [Dragt is an artist as well as a writer / zt]. She also wants to be present when the dolls’ house that she built as scenery for her last two novels is donated to the Museum of Literature. She even dreams of writing one more story. It has working title “The Painting of Wu Daozi” and is a key passage in her still unfinished final novel, The Road to the Cell.

‘It’s about a legendary painter from the 6th or 7th century BC. His paintings were so lifelike, that one day he disappeared into one of them. I often told my version in the classroom, when I was still an art teacher. It resulted in the most beautiful artwork. I never wanted to write it down, because I was afraid that then I wouldn’t be able to tell it any more. But now I often find myself thinking about it at night. Yes, I do think I should write down that story. Then you’ll understand everything.’

***********

I hope it goes without saying that any errors or misjudgments in the translation are mine and mine alone. I’m most grateful to Pjotr van Lenteren for permission to translate his Volkskrant article, and would encourage any of you who read Dutch to take a look at his book blog De Gelukkige Lezer or to follow him on Twitter @gelukkigelezer.

If the story Wu Daozi has piqued your interest, I can wholeheartedly recommend the exquisite picture book Brush of the Gods by Lenore Look, illustrated by Meilo So. I do hope that one day we get to read Tonke Dragt’s version of the story, but in the meantime I’m sure you’ll find plenty to enjoy in this Look and So’s retelling of Wu Daozi’s story. As to more from Dragt? I’m delighted to report that translator Laura Watkinson is now working on Dragt’s De Zevensprong, a book about a treasure hunt and a rescue mission which takes its title from a traditional song every Dutch child knows. A challenge for Watkinson to translate, but one I’m more than sure she’ll rise to!

The Secrets of the Wild Wood publishes on 3 September 2015 in the UK. Special thanks to my mother-in-law for first alerting me to Pjotr van Lenteren’s interview.

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read the interview I carried out with Laura Watkinson, or this post about my favourite books translated from Dutch, with further suggestions for future translations from translator David Colmer.

If you’d like to receive all my posts from this blog please sign up by inputting your email address in the box below:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Add a Comment

Would you let your child loose with someone whom others might describes as threatening, morally corrupt, gullible, impudent, and very hungry for little people?

I’m guessing not.

And yet with picture books we do that more often than we might realise.

And our kids love us for it.

A great example of this is the newest board book from Gecko Press, a New Zealand based publisher I follow with great interest for they have a very particular eye when it comes to books which do things differently.

Help! The Wolf is Coming! by Cédric Ramadier and Vincent Bourgeau, translated by Linda Burgess, is a wonderfully thrilling and delightfully funny story about a wolf making its way threateningly towards us, the reader and listener. As it gets closer and closer we’re invited to do what we can to stop Wolf in his tracks and save ourselves from his clutches.

Prompted to turn the book to an angle, we cause Wolf to start slipping off the page. By shaking the book, we can rattle Wolf. But can we actually save ourselves, and more importantly, save our children?

Like Hervé Tullet’s Press Here, Help! The Wolf is Coming! pushes the boundary of what we take for granted as a book and how we can interact with the physical object in our hands. It asks questions about how we allow ourselves to play, to let imagination take over whilst we suspend reality. Both Press Here and Help! The Wolf is Coming! encourage us to do various things to the book and these actions appear to have consequences for what’s on the page.

On one level, we are in no doubt that what we’re doing doesn’t actually cause any reaction; A physical book is not like an app, where a tap or a swipe does change what happens. On another level, however, we as readers and listeners have great fun becoming omnipotent, able to shape the story and take control of the book, even if (or perhaps because?) what happens, happens inside us.

Help! The Wolf is Coming! not only tests the boundaries of what it means to be a book and engage with it. It also nudges up against themes which push boundaries. It’s about a wolf who is no doubt full of bad intentions. He’s all jagged edges, his mouth is blood red, his eyes stare strikingly out from the page. If we’re not careful, we are going to be eaten up. And yet I can guarantee this is a book that will be requested time and time again. Even though Wolf is a baddy through and through our kids will want to return to him. And why’s this? Why do we put ourselves through the worry and the fear?

Perhaps it’s all for the peal of laughter and delight that comes with the relief when we realise at the end of the book that we’re safe and in the arms of our loved ones. Just like the thrill of a circus ride, coming face to face with a threat, a big worry, or an enormous fear is all worth it if, in the end, we discover we’re safe.

That said, Help! The Wolf is Coming! will suit fans of Jon Klassen as the ending is potentially ambivalent. The door on the wolf may not actually be locked shut… and what then?

This book is sizzlingly good fun to share. It’s got an enormous appeal across the age ranges (don’t be fooled by the fact that is has been produced as a board book. I challenge you to give it to some 10 year olds and see how they react; I’d place money on a hugely positive reaction). Delicious desire, finely tuned tension, wit, power, giggles and exhilaration are all to be found in its pages. No wonder we’ve all returned many times to this book already.

And returning to wolves is something which Gecko Press has also done several times now. They’ve a whole slew of great books which explore that double edged wonderfulness of wolves – their capacity to simultaneously provide enormous excitement and terrible anxiety – and their ability to make us feel clever at their foolishness.

In addition to Help! The Wolf is Coming!, they’ve published I am The Wolf and Here I Come! (such a great book for children learning to get dressed and one which will end with adult and child heaped in a bundle of tickles and kisses and cuddles), I am So Strong, I am so Handsome (two wonderful books about hubris), Wolf and Dog (a fabulous, gorgeously illustrated first chapter book about heart warming friendship). Noting this apparent predilection for all things lupine I asked Gecko Press publisher Julia Marshall for her thoughts on her wolfish catalogue and why she thinks wolves, despite being threatening, morally corrupt, gullible, impudent, and very hungry for little children are so perfect for meeting in picture books.

Playing by the book: Help! The Wolf is Coming, I am The Wolf and Here I Come!, I am So Strong, I am so Handsome, Wolf and Dog…. what does your catalogue tell us about how you feel about wolves?

Julia Marshall, Gecko Press Publisher: Wolves can be so many different things in a book. The image of a pack of gray, slinky, shadowy wolves is terrifying, isnt it? But what our wolves have in common is that they are all a bit funny. They are busy trying to be frightening, though they are not at all. They are a bit bombastic, a little silly, and it is easy to get the better of them. And mostly they are very frightened themselves, poor things.

Playing by the book: What do you think young children love so much about these wolf characters?

Julia Marshall: I think children love to experience the frisson of fear, safely confined to the pages of the book (In I am The Wolf and Here I Come! on the back cover it says “Snap the book shut to keep the wolf inside”. And when I read it to a child I say: “And isn’t it nice that he has to stay there, all night!”). It is a bit like tickling – sort of nice-not-nice at the same time. But of course one should not take a wolf at face value. A wolf is a wolf, after all, and always a little unpredictable, and it is as well to know that.

Playing by the book: What other children’s books (in particular, picture books) with wolves in do you love?

Julia Marshall: I love Emily Gravett’s Wolves – it has my favourite picture book cover also. Old stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Romulus and Remus are very strong for me too. My favourite French wolf is Loulou by Grégoire Solotareff and I would love for that to be a Gecko Press book.

Playing by the book: Have you any more wolf books on the way?

Julia Marshall: We do! We have a new non-fiction book coming early next year about Wolf and Dog, which includes things about mummies and dinosaurs. It is a great book! I like its mixture of fiction and non-fiction and the humour that is at the heart of it.

Playing by the book: Ooh, great! That sounds right up our street. We’ll be keeping an eye out for it!

Inspired by Help! The Wolf is Coming! my girls and I set about creating our own interactive books with instructions for the readers to make magic happen. We each started with a blank board book: You can buy blank board books ready-made, your can make your own from pressed (ie non corrugated) cardboard, or you can recycle old board books by covering the pages with full sheet adhesive labels which you trim to size, which is what we did.

First we talked about different ways we can physically interact with books and what consequences that could have for their illustrations. Then we mapped out our interactions on a story board and then drew them into our board books.

Front covers and titles followed and now I can proudly present to you:

Here’s an excerpt from my 7 year old’s book:

I’m not going to give away the end of this exciting story, but let’s just say it doesn’t turn out well for Evil Emperor Penguin (yes, if you’re a fan of this fabulous comic you might recognise the lead character )

Whilst making our books we listened to:

Wolf by First Aid Kit

Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran in homage to my teenage years (“What Mum, you liked this when you were a kid? NO WAY!?!”)

Howlin’ Wolf by Smokestack Lightnin’, cause you gotta educate the kids.

Alongside reading Help! The Wolf is Coming! you could look up other wolfy books to enjoy together. Here are some of my favourite:

My thanks go to @AHintofMystery, ‏@jonesgarethp, ‏@chaletfan, @librarymice, ‏@ruthmarybennett, ‏@AitchLove, @KatyjaMoran, @kdbrundell, and @KrisDHumphrey for a stimulating discussion on Twitter around wolves in books for children, especially exploring the notion that wolves in picture books are often depicted as threats (as in many of the picture books above), whilst in books for older children are often depicted as allies (for example in Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, or Katherine Brundell’s forthcoming The Wolf Wilder). Whilst there are exceptions to this generality, we discussed why there might be different relationships with wolves depending on the age of the readership: Wolves as a metaphor for growing sexual awareness – which has (mostly) no place in picture books and is therefore presented as bad thing, but as readers get older it becomes less threatening, wolves as a cipher for independence, growth and maturity, and / or our relationship with wolves shifting as we grow up, as we become bolder and more interested in (or at least less threatened by) unpredictability. No doubt there’s much more that could be unpicked here, but it was a really enjoyable conversation and I’m really grateful to everyone who chimed in.

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Help! The Wolf is Coming! from the publisher.

If you’d like to receive all my posts from this blog please sign up by your email address in the box below:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Add a Comment

Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret by D. D. Everest takes you into a world where bookshelves are enchanted, librarians have magical powers, and spells aren’t just something to read about in dusty tomes. It’s ideal for kids around the age of 10 who perhaps enjoyed the magic of Harry Potter, but it can also can be enjoyed as a family read with younger children who’ll be excited by mysterious apparitions and strange goings-on.

Archie Greene receives a curious birthday present; an old wooden box containing a book written in a language he can’t read, along with the command to return this book to its rightful place on the shelves in the Secret Library. This is the first step on Archie’s journey to meet the family he never knew he had and a band of people dedicated to finding and saving magic books.

Atmospheric and exciting, I enjoyed this book so much I’ve since recommended it to several children in my 8-12 bookgroup. With a paperback edition hitting bookshelves early in June I took the opportunity to interview D.D. Everest about this book.

Playing by the book: Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret is a wonderful fantasy novel. What is it about fantasy as a genre that appeals to you? I’m especially curious because of your background as a journalist and non-fiction writer, both of which seem to be about as distant as you can get from fantasy… which is maybe part of the answer?

D. D. Everest: You’re right. One of the (many) reasons I love the fantasy genre is that it is so far removed from my other work as a journalist. When you deal with dry facts all day it is such a treat to escape to another world of magic and adventure.

But I have always loved magical fantasy. My favourite books growing up were the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. What I love most about those books is the depth and detail that Tolkien gives to the world he creates, the layering of the stories and the myths and the cultures that he describes.

Playing by the book: I love books where true facts coincide with the story and this very much happens in Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret; John Dee really did exist and was Elizabeth 1’s adviser, and there was indeed a Library of Alexandria which was destroyed by fire. What other truths have you smuggled in to your story? (What other truths did you discover during your research which you would like to have included in your story)

D. D. Everest: I think including real facts and places grounds a story. It connects it to the real world so it feels like you can almost touch it. It’s something I really wanted to do with the Archie books. Using history is a great way to give the story some of that depth that I mentioned before.

John Dee, who is in the first Archie book, was a real person. He was described as Queen Elizabeth I’s court magician. He really did collect books about magic and he did think he could talk to angels. The Great Library of Alexandria is also historically accurate, although the part about Alexander the Great’s magical book collection being kept there is just wishful thinking!

Another historical detail I included in the book is the Great Fire of London. In Archie’s world, the fire was started by a magical experiment that went wrong. That plays a big part in the second book Archie Greene and the Alchemists’ Secret.

Playing by the book: With another hat on you’ve written several non-fiction books. How has writing fiction compared? What’s been more difficult about writing fiction? And what has been more enjoyable? Do you still write non-fiction?

D. D. Everest: Writing fiction is much harder, especially fantasy because you are creating a whole world from your imagination. That world has to be plausible enough for people to believe in it and exciting enough for them to want to read about it.

Writing children’s books is the most challenging of all. Having said that, I don’t write for children as such. I write what I’d like to read. But I hope children will enjoy it.

The best thing about writing for children is that they have such rich imaginations that you have lots of licence to be creative. So, you have a big canvas. But the other side of that is they have very high expectations. They question everything in a way that adults don’t, which means they could get ahead of the plot or find holes in the logic. So you have to work really hard at that.

Playing by the book: Can you share a little of the research you did for Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret – I imagine you spent time exploring the back streets of Oxford and visiting atmospheric libraries, perhaps even learning some bookbinding skills?

D. D. Everest: Luckily, I was doing some work at the university when I was writing the first book so I was in Oxford quite a lot. I wandered around at night taking lots of photos with my phone. I sometimes show the pictures when I do school events. Again, it grounds the story and makes it feel real.

For example, there is a description of when Archie first goes to the magical bookshop and he crosses a cobbled square and goes into some narrow lanes. If you go to Oxford it is very easy to find that cobbled square!

Playing by the book: Libraries play an important role in Archie Greene and the Magician’s Secret. Can you share a memory/experience of libraries and the role they’ve played in your life?

D. D. Everest: Most of my memories of libraries are of being told to be quiet because I was talking too loudly! That’s probably why I wanted the Museum of Magical Miscellany to be a noisy place, full of children laughing. Books should be exciting and fun. And magical books should be even more exciting and fun, so that’s how I imagined the Museum.

I have been lucky to see some famous libraries like the British Library, which are fabulous places. I’ve always wanted to have my own library – with revolving bookcases and secret passages. Perhaps I will one day!

Playing by the book: Did you always want to be a writer? If you weren’t a writer, would you rather be? (A professional football coach, perhaps?)

D. D. Everest: I have always wanted to be a writer ever since I was very young. I didn’t really know it at the time but looking back I can see it now. I was the kid who wrote pages and pages when the teacher asked us to write a story. My stories were always too long and complicated to finish in the lesson time. I still do that!

When I’m not writing I manage a junior football team. Most of them have been with me since they were about six – they are now 17. They are a great bunch. I’m not sure how good a manager I would be but I do enjoy it, especially on match days.

Playing by the book: What’s the most magical (in any sense) book you’ve read recently?

D. D. Everest: I really enjoyed Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell. It is very imaginative and beautifully written. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, is so original. The other really clever book I’ve just read is Lockwood & Co. The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud. He’s a great writer – I loved his Bartimaeus series.

Playing by the book: What magic trick would you most like to be able to perform?

D. D. Everest: I’d like to be able to vanish, so I could avoid people I don’t want to talk to. I’d love to have a permission wall around my study, too, like the one that protects the Museum of Magical Miscellany so that only people with the secret mark could come in. But best of all I’d love to be able to talk to magical books like Archie!

Playing by the book: Oh, yes I’m with you on that one! Here’s keeping our fingers crossed that such magic comes our way!

If you’d like to receive all my posts from this blog please enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Add a Comment

Many of the best books take us into ourselves and outside into the world, facilitating journeys we might not otherwise have taken either in thought or reality. This sense of adventure and possibility is one of the reason’s why I’m so passionate about books in translation and why I was delighted to hear about the bestselling Chinese children’s novel Bronze and Sunflower (青铜葵花) by Cao Wenxuan hitting English-language bookshelves for the first time this year, thanks to its translation by Helen Wang.

Sunflower and Bronze, two children who are isolated and lonely for different reasons befriend each other. Following the death of Sunflower’s father, Bronze’s family unofficially adopt Sunflower and the story then follows the two children’s friendship, adventures, and experiences living in a very poor but very happy and generous family. Although not without times of grief and real hardship, Bronze and Sunflower’s lives are full of so much loveliness, happiness and kindness that this book, this story came as a welcome breath of fresh air, full of hope and a reminder that warmth and generosity can make for powerful storytelling just as much as angst and dystopia.

Although set in rural China during the Cultural Revolution Bronze and Sunflower has a timeless quality about it; yes, there are references to Cadre schools (a feature of the Cultural Revolution) but nevertheless it felt as if this story could have been set in almost any time period. It has a folktale-like quality in its focus on simple everyday events and challenges. The ingenuity of Bronze, the determination of his entire family to provide the best they can for Sunflower, and the fierce love between adoptive brother and sister are moving and enchanting.

This exploration of aspects of every day simple life reminded me at times of the Laura Ingalls books in the best possible sense and thus I believe Bronze and Sunflower would make a great read aloud from around 6+, as well as being enjoyed by older independent readers. This quiet and gentle story woven through with thoughtfulness and bright love will stay with me for a long time.

Captivated as I was by this Chinese novel, I took the opportunity to interview its translator, Helen Wang, about her work and – more broadly – Chinese children’s literature. First I asked about the process Helen goes through when translating a book, where she starts and what “tricks” or routines she makes use of.

Helen Wang: This is only the second book I’ve translated, so I don’t really have any “tricks” or routines. It takes a few months to translate a novel, and it seems to take between one to two years for a translated book to appear in print. It’s quite a commitment for everyone involved. So I like to take some time at the beginning to read the book and play with it, and work out whether we’ll get along – a bit like browsing in a bookshop or a library. One publisher was very keen for me to translate a particular book, and was so anxious when I turned it down. She wanted to know what was wrong with the book! There was nothing with the book, it was just that I didn’t feel I was the right person to translate it. Actually, the experience reminded me a bit of Daniel Pennac’s book “The Rights of the Reader” (translated by Sarah Ardizzone).

Playing by the book: Yes, translators have rights too! How interesting that you felt your style or approach didn’t somehow match a given book. That makes me wonder…what were the most challenging aspects of translating Bronze and Sunflower?

Helen Wang: When the editor at Walker Books sent me the Chinese edition of Bronze and Sunflower, I was staying with my mother and sister, and I would read a chapter at a time and then tell them what had happened. At first it seemed as though I was telling them about one brutal disaster or trauma after another, and it was not easy to show how the story would work in English. As the written translation progressed, it was lovely to see the human story coming to the fore.

We often think about language and culture when translating, but the story-telling is just as important. Things like timing, tension, suspense, length, rhythm, humour and dialogue are crucial elements of a story. We learn these when we are very young, and we all know how little children will complain if you don’t tell the story properly. Chinese stories often provide more information, and more repetition, than the English reader is used to. It doesn’t mean that one style is better than another, but rather that we have different expectations and tolerances. For example, when Sherlock Holmes’ stories were first translated into Chinese, they were given spoiler-titles like “The Case of the Sapphire in the Belly of the Goose”. Part of the challenge of translating is working out the storytelling!

Playing by the book: I find it really interesting that you talk about the impact of the disasters when you were first reading Bronze and Sunflower. Whilst there’s definitely hardship and trauma I didn’t find them overwhelming. What shone through was the compassion and thoughtful human relationships. There were whole stretches I wanted to underline! So tell me, what is your favourite passage in Bronze and Sunflower – your favourite bit of narrative?

Helen Wang: I think one of my favourite lines in the whole book has to be in the last chapter, when the authorities come to talk to the head of the village about moving Sunflower back to the city. We’ve followed the family through all the hardships, and like the family and the villagers, we can’t bear the thought of the authorities taking her away. The head of the village, playing for time, sums up the situation so succinctly: “It’s difficult”. It’s perfect!

Playing by the book: Ah yes, that’s a great scene. My personal favourite (without giving too much away) is the one which involves fireflies…. But now perhaps a much harder question: In what way is Bronze and Sunflower typical (or atypical) of 21st century Chinese children’s literature? I read recently that Chinese children’s literature tends to have what Westerners might call a strong Famous Five flavour, and that lots of what gets written would be considered a bit old fashioned for success in Western markets.

Helen Wang: Well I’ve already mentioned the fact that in Chinese stories there can be a different tempo, tension or tolerance of certain linguistic devices such as repetition.

I’ve heard English people say that Chinese children’s books can be overly moral or too didactic. And I’ve heard Chinese people complain that English stories lack firm morals and instruction! But these were adults talking, and it would useful to have some feedback from younger readers too!

One way to get an idea of what’s popular in China now is to look at the list of the 30 bestselling children’s books. The last available list is for February 2015.

By far the most popular children’s author at the moment is Leon Image (a pseudonym), who has ten books in the Top 30, and is one of the richest authors in China. Leon Image is the creator of the phenomenally successful Charlie IX series. Charlie IX is a dog with royal pedigree and superpowers, who, together with his schoolboy owner DoDoMo, goes on amazing fantasy adventures that involve working out clues along the way. The books come together with a magnifier, stickers and puzzles. The latest book is the series is no. 24: Charlie IX, Empty City at the End of the World, and there are currently eight books of this series in the top 30!

Leon Image has also produced the very popular Monster Magic series, and two of these (nos 13 and 14) are in the top 30. I don’t think any of the Leon Image books have been translated into English. However, there are four authors on the list whose work has been translated into English fairly recently.

Yang Hongying is the creator of several very successful series. She started writing children’s books as a young primary school teacher in the 1980s, and after a few years left teaching to concentrate on writing. Her ‘Mo’s Mischief’ series is about a lively little boy, Mo, who keeps getting into trouble (some of these are available in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo’s_Mischief). ‘The Diary of a Smiling Cat’ series follows the adventures of Mo’s cousin’s talking pet cat. ‘Girl’s Diary’ is about a girl in her last year at primary school.

Shen Shixi is China’s “King of Animal Stories” and he has written lots of them! His current bestseller in China is ‘Wolf King Dream’. His book Jackal and Wolf is available in English (translated by me) – it’s about a jackal who raises an orphaned wolf cub and the hair-raising adventures they have hunting, surviving, finding mates, having cubs – with the added complications that wolves and jackals don’t get on, and that they have a mother-daughter relationship.

Wu Meizhen is well-known for her Sunshine Sister series. She also wrote An Unusual Princess, which is available in English, translated by Petula Parris-Huang, and has a few twists in the tail.

Cao Wenxuan is Professor of Chinese Literature at Peking University, and writes for both adults and children. He currently has two books in the top 30: Bronze and Sunflower, first published in 2005 and still one of the bestselling children’s books in China; and Straw Houses (tr Sylvia Yu et al). Both of these are available in English now, and I hear a third – Dawang Tome: The Amber Tiles (translated by Nicholas Richards, Better Chinese, California, 2015. ISBN 978-1-60603-707-2) – will be launched at Book Expo America 2015, in May, where China is the guest of honour this year.

There are several commercial titles tied in with TV series, such as the Happy Lamb, Little Pig and Carrot Fantasy series. And there are six well-known translated titles on the list too: Totto-chan, Little Girl at the Window (Tetsuko Kuroyanagi), Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White), Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren), Fantastic Mr Fox (Roald Dahl), The Cricket in Times Square (George Selden) and Guess How Much I Love You? (Sam McBratney, Anita Jeram).

If you want to read more you might enjoy the special issue of IBBY’s journal Bookbird devoted to Chinese children’s books, although it was published nearly 10 years ago in 2006, nearly 10 years ago! It’s time for a new one!

There are also a couple of lists on Good Reads dedicated to Chinese children’s books / themes – Children’s Books about CHINA & Chinese Culture and Chinese Juvenile/Young Adults books.

Some books I might highlight include:

White Horses by Yan Ge, translated by Nicky Harman. This is a Young Adult novella. Yan Ge’s a very observant young writer with a wicked sense of humour.

Black Flame by Gerelchimeg Blackcrane, translated by Anna Holmwood. This is an animal story about a Tibetan mastiff

Pai Hua Zi and the Clever Girl, a graphic novel by Zhang Xinxin which I’ve translated, about Zhang Xinxin’s childhood in Beijing in the 1960s on the eve of the Cultural Revolution.

Little White Duck – a Childhood in China by Na Liu and Andres Vera Martinez. This graphic novel is set in the 1970s.

A Chinese Life by Philippe Otie and Li Kunwu. This graphic novel is set in 1940s onwards, under Mao Zedong.

Playing by the book: It’s interesting to see what’s been translated and sells – both in terms of being translated from and into Chinese. What other Chinese children’s literature would you like to see available for English language audiences?

Helen Wang:I’d like to see a wider range of titles that show us different aspects of the Chinese experience from a child’s point of view. How about a Chinese version of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”? Something that tells us what it’s like being a child in China today?

From the list of bestsellers, you can see that there are school stories, animal stories, naughty boy stories, and stories about children having adventures, just like there are here in the UK. I’d like to see some more stories that are about what it’s like to be a young person growing up in China or in the Chinese diaspora. I recently read The Ventriloquist’s Daughter by Man-chiu Lin, which is a wonderful story of a young girl’s struggle to establish her own identity as she grows up – I think this would work very well in English. You can read a sample of this (translated by me) in the new Found in Translation Anthology here on pages 57-71.

Playing by the book: Thank you so much Helen. My reading list has grown exponentially! I’m very grateful that you’ve shared your knowledge of Chinese children’s literature today, and I especially want to thank you for enabling – with your translation – the story Bronze and Sunflower to to find another fan, another home inside me and no doubt many other English language speakers and readers.

Add a Comment

Barcelona-born Marta Altés is a graduate of one of the most fertile courses in the UK when it comes to producing fabulous illustrators – the MA Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. She originally trained and worked in Spain as a graphic designer before taking the plunge to follow her childhood dreams, move country and retrain as an illustrator. “I think it was the BEST decision I have ever made,” says Marta, and with nine books already to her name and more following later this year (noting Marta graduated only four years ago) her success speaks for itself. Her latest book in English is The King Cat, a lovely story about friendship, negotiations and adjusting to change, especially in families welcoming a new arrival.

I recently caught up with Marta and asked her about The King Cat, her love of dogs, chocolate and more. Here’s how our conversation went:

Playing by the book: I know you sometimes include secret details in your illustrations – images of friends and family for example. Can you share a secret about your new book, ‘The King Cat’ – something we should look out for in the illustrations?

Marta Altés: Yes I do that! But I don’t always do it on purpose… It just happens. I start drawing a character and it ends up looking like somebody I know. In this case, I think, somehow I ended up illustrating the house that I would like to live in. Walls full of different sized frames (not with cat photos!), old and nice furniture, a sofa full of cushions with different patterns…

Also… Even though the story was VERY different when I started it, now it is the story of any person who has a young sibling (including me). My brother is 4 years younger than me, so I guess I was “king cat”. Although I don’t think I had his strong personality (a part from the times he broke my toys… of course)

Another thing that you can look out for in the illustrations is the little joke on the endpapers. On the first one we see a little basket full of wool balls and knitting needles on a table. Check out what’s on the last endpaper Both cat and dog don’t know yet, but they are about to deal with the arrival of a new member to this family.

Playing by the book: I’m guessing you’re quite a dog person given your very funny book No! and your new book – what dog books (for kids) have made you laugh or nod in recognition of your life with dogs?

Marta Altés: You got me! Yes I am! I dogs make me laugh… My mum is taking care of my dog in Barcelona, and I miss him very much. Dog books that have made me laugh recently are:

Plumdog by Emma Chichester Clark

Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton

Time for Bed, Fred by Yasmeen Ismail

Also, not a book, but a blog: Mike Smith’s diary is great. He draws lovely everyday life sequences about him and his family, including very funny situations with his dog. Here are a few examples:

http://blogshank.com/2013/02/280113/

http://blogshank.com/2011/06/160511/

http://blogshank.com/2011/06/130611/

Playing by the book: What aspects of being a graphic designer (in an earlier life) have helped in your career as an illustrator?

Marta Altés: I think having been a graphic designer has definitely influenced the way I work as an illustrator. Mostly in the way I use colour (always a very limited palette), the use of white space, the compositions of the illustrations on the page and knowing how to use some software like Photoshop.

I also enjoy hand-lettering quite a lot, and the importance I give to the fonts is probably because of my graphic design background.

I suffered a lot when it came the time to write our final dissertation in the MA, my English wasn’t the best, and it was a big effort. But I learned a lot. I wrote about Graphic Design in Picture Books, and since then, I try to take all the elements that you have in a book to communicate the main idea (Cover, endpapers, title page, font, colour, where the text is placed…).

Playing by the book: What was hard to “unlearn” when moving from graphic design to illustration?

Marta Altés: It was difficult but at the same time one of the most exciting things was to try not to use the computer too much. And another thing was to not be afraid of trying new things, like – for example – watercolours! I hadn’t used them before joining the MA, and I’m so glad our tutors were always encouraging us to try new techniques.

Playing by the book: Do you see differences in illustration styles favoured in the UK as compared to in Spain? If so, what are they?

Marta Altés: I don’t like to generalize and I think each illustrator has a different way of seeing life and working, no matter where they live. There are English illustrators working for Spanish publishers and vice versa.

A couple of years ago at the Bologna Book Fair, I started talking to a Spanish art director that was there seeking talent at the MA Children’s Book illustration stand. And she pointed out how the main characters of many English picture books were animals, and that it is something that usually doesn’t happen there. I thought that it was a very interesting thing!

Playing by the book: What Catalan children’s books do you wish were translated into English so a wider audience could enjoy them?

Marta Altés: Probably all the ones I use to read when I was a kid (although I’ve just checked and many of them have already been translated!). One of my favourite ones is “El Patufet” a very surreal story about a little boy that was veeeeery tiny (and I won’t spoil the ending because is one of the most surreal endings ever!)

There are also many small Spanish publishers doing very interesting things.

Playing by the book: Could you share some of the illustrations you made for the Catalan/Spanish/Galician chapter books/poetry you’ve illustrated?

Marta Altés: I really enjoy working on different projects at the same time as working on picture books. It gives me the opportunity to experiment with new techniques. Illustrating a text that is not yours is lots of fun because you can give your vision of the story through your drawings. But is a completely different approach to when you illustrate your own text. In the latter case, you keep editing text and image to make them work together, almost until the day you send the files to print!

A very challenging project I’ve just illustrated is this Catalan Poetry book for kids (‘Tan Petita i ja saps‘ written by Maria Mercè Marçal). I hadn’t illustrated poetry before, and it was quite difficult. Also, I was told there had to be something that graphically linked together all the pages of the book. That made me go and do some research on the symbology of the author and I ended up using the night, stars and sea as the main elements of the book. The idea of the darkness of the night sky made me try to use brush and black ink. And I coloured things digitally.

The chapter book I’ve just illustrated for a Spanish publisher talks about the story of a little mouse meeting a girl who has just moved into a new house. I thought it would be fun to play with shadows and lights. Something that I’m not very good at but I wanted to give it a try. So I did try, and it was lots of fun. Again it was a mix between digital colouring, pencil and millions of layers of photoshop.

Playing by the book: I believe you work as a part time lecturer in the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. What’s your role on the course?

Marta Altés: Studying in the MA was one of the best experiences ever! I met so many nice people and it was very sad when it was over. So I felt over the moon when Martin Salisbury offered me the opportunity to go back and work there.

What I enjoy the most is working with the students on the sequences, storyboards and story lines of their projects. Each project is very different from the other so going there is very challenging but also very exciting!

I’m so happy to still be involved with the MA. I get to meet lots of lovely people and I’m super lucky to be working there along with amazing illustrators like James Mayhew, David Hughes, Pam Smy, Alexis Deacon, Paula Metcalf and Hannah Webb!

Playing by the book: If you weren’t an illustrator, what would you like to be?

Marta Altés: I’ve been a full time illustrator just for the past 4 years, so this is a difficult question to answer… 5 years ago I was a graphic designer that wanted to be an illustrator (my dream came true). Now… If I weren’t an illustrator, I guess I would like to be a dancer (I know it’s WAY too late). I’ve danced since I was little and it’s something that I love doing.

Playing by the book: I hear you like chocolate. What sort of chocolate is your favourite?

Marta Altés: I loooove chocolate. All sorts of chocolate… But if I had to pick one it would be dark chocolate. Or triple chocolate covered with a layer of double chocolate with chocolate sprinkles to top.

Playing by the book: Many thanks Marta – it’s been great fun interviewing you. I hope you enjoy the virtual chocolate I’ve found for you

Marta Altés’s website: http://www.martaltes.com/
Marta Altés on Facebook
Marta Altés on Twitter
Marta Altés on Instagram

Display Comments Add a Comment

I’m more than thrilled to bring you a very special interview today with both “the patron saint of poetry” (according to the current Poet Laureate) and a former Children’s Laureate in conversation. Yes, none other than Roger McGough and Michael Rosen have stopped by my blog today in celebration of a new edition of their classic collection of poetry, You Tell Me, re-issued earlier this year with the addition of some new poems and fabulous and sometimes anarchic illustrations by Korky Paul.

A hugely wide-ranging anthology, with poems about broccoli and bad habits, football and first days at school, toothpaste and tongue twisters, there’s something for everyone in You Tell Me. There are poems to make you laugh out loud, poems to make you think twice and poems which easily turn into earworms. Each poem can be enjoyed as a stand-alone experience, but this anthology really struck me for the way the poems are ordered, with poems by the two different authors placed following or facing each other in such a way as to help me (and no doubt many other readers) make new connections and see different things in each of the individual poems.

Here’s how my conversation with Roger and Michael unfolded:

Playing by the book: Astonishingly it’s 35 years since You Tell Me was first published. How do you see the children’s poetry landscape (in the UK) having changed in the intervening years?

Roger McGough: When I look back I can see that You Tell Me came out at time when attitudes to poets and poetry were changing. Before the 80s few poets went into schools, but within a decade, as more poets visited schools (funded initially through the Poetry Society), publishers committed themselves to publishing single poet collections as well as anthologies, and this commitment snowballed into success, both commercially as well as educationally. Sadly, things have gone down hill since and publishers, in hard times, are reluctant to publish new work. Last year I was the Chair of the judging panel of the CLPE Poetry Award. The judges were really concerned about how few books were submitted and noted that many of the publishers previously associated with poetry – Puffin, Faber and OUP – had nothing to submit. Meanwhile Macmillan and Janetta Otter-Barry at Frances Lincoln Children’s Books do a good job. I gather that Puffin are back on board and look forward to judging the CLPE Poetry Award this year.

Michael Rosen: I think young poets are finding it pretty hard to get published at the moment. However, one aspect of the national curriculum is that it asks teachers to factor in poetry so I find that teachers are once again on the hunt for a wide range of poetry. I fully understand that publishers find it hard to keep up with the whims of central government in these matters but perhaps now is a good time to pull together some good collections of new poets – especially if those poets are the ones who are doing a lot of school visits.

Playing by the book: How do you see your own poetry having changed over the course of the past 35 years?

Roger McGough: I hope it gets better with the more I read – but I never know! I have the same views on life and interest in language.

Michael Rosen: Difficult to say. I keep trying to experiment, trying new rhythms, new themes. Sometimes I read back to myself, things I’ve written over the last few years, and I can see how similar they are to things I was writing 30 years ago, and others, I’m almost surprised I wrote them!

Playing by the book: When You Tell Me was first published how were the poems selected? Did you personally choose them? Did you consult each other? Or was there someone else facilitating? And how has this worked for the new edition which contains several new poems?

Roger McGough: It seems odd now but when the first book was published Michael and I didn’t meet to discuss which poems should be included. Some of mine had been published in books of poetry for adults so, on the whole, Michael’s poems appealed to younger children. The editor at Puffin did a good job making the selection. It’s been a different experience with the new edition. Michael, Janetta Otter-Barry and I have met together to discuss the poems in depth. I was worried about ‘The Lesson‘ – that people may not understand the irony and my references to guns and violence – but Michael and Janetta both felt the poem should go in. We’ve included some new poems too. I enjoyed the experience of discussing the book and I think it’s better for it.

Michael Rosen: Yes, I agree with Roger here.

Playing by the book: Now bear with me on this – I’m deliberately being a little provocative here.. part of me wants to ‘ban’ printed poetry books… at least as the way people, especially children are introduced to poetry. Why? In my experience, especially with children, poetry most truly comes to life when it is spoken and heard… and so I think audio books or podcasts (or especially real live people) should be the door to open poetry books. What do _you_ think?

Roger McGough: I understand what you saying but the reality is that audio books follow the published book. That’s the economics of it.

Michael Rosen: I don’t think we need to get either-or-ish about this. Child and adult readers vary a great deal. This means that some children ‘get’ poetry straight off the page, some don’t. Some like it performed and won’t ever come to look at the page version. Some like to relate the performed version to the printed version…and so on. So I think it’s the job of poets and those who teach poetry to remain open and flexible about all this. Part of this should be to give children plenty of opportunity to perform poems without necessary worrying about learning them off by heart. Meanwhile, children should have the experience of playing with words on the page…seeing what happens when you swap letters, words and phrases around, in ways that are quite difficult to do orally.

Playing by the book: I guess I’m getting at the idea that poetry – when it is heard – is full of rhythm and sounds and emotions that can be harder for younger children to internally hear when presented with black and white text on the page. How can we help children develop that (internal) ear for rhythm and the sounds of language, that will help them hear the poetry even when they are reading from the page?

Roger McGough: It’s good for children, and adults, to hear poetry. To hear it read at home and at school. It’s also good for them to see what it looks like on the written page and see the shape of the words. The more children have access to poetry – the more they will enjoy it.

Michael Rosen: I agree that hearing poets and teachers (and parents and carers) read poetry enables children to make it work for them on the page. Yes, it supports their private reading.

Playing by the book: So what top tips do you have for helping families fall in love with poetry? (There are quite a few resources aimed at bringing poetry to life in school, but what about in the home?)

Roger McGough: Don’t be afraid of poetry. Just have the books around. Ready to pick up and read.

Michael Rosen: I agree with Roger. Poetry works very well in an incidental way, supporting our lives – and that applies to both reading and writing it. If ever you’ve seen a parrot or a mynah bird listen, they put their heads on one side and sway to and fro. It’s as if they’ve been suddenly bewitched or tickled. Poetry works best if it causes that kind of effect.

Playing by the book: What’s the last poem you read?

Roger McGough:
Wayland by Tony Mitton, winner of the CLPE Poetry Award 2014 [illustrated by John Lawrence/zt], and (for adults) O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman.

Michael Rosen: The last poems I heard are by James Berry, as read by James himself, Grace Nichols and John Agard. My wife, Emma-Louise Williams has made a BBC Radio 4 programme about James called ‘A Story I am In‘ (you can hear the programme on 22 March 4.30pm, BBC Radio 4 and on iPlayer thereafter)

The poems included:

‘On an afternoon train from Purley to Victoria, 1955′

‘In-a Brixtan Markit’

‘Mek Drum Talk’

‘New World Colonial Child’

(from The Story I am in published by Bloodaxe)

Playing by the book: What’s the last poem you wrote?

Roger McGough: It’s not yet published – I have rewritten an adult poem ‘Crocodile in the City’ for children, retitled ‘Crocodile Tears’.

Michael Rosen: ‘Caesar Curb Immigrants, Year Zero’ – in a forthcoming collection called ‘Don’t Mention the Children’ to be published by Smokestack Books.

Playing by the book: What would your 8 (or 3 or 5…) desert island poems be?

Roger McGough:
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
Sea Fever by John Masefield
A Smuggler’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
Who Killed Cock Robin? (Anon). This is the first poem that made me cry as a young child.
I am the Song by Charles Causley
Night Mail by W H Auden
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

Michael Rosen:
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
First they came for the Communists by Pastor Martin Niemöller
The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Poem known as My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
Le Corbeau et le Renard by La Fontaine
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man’s snoring (Anon)
‘Larger than life’ by Harold Rosen, my father, about my late son Eddie.

Playing by the book: Thank you, thank you Roger and Michael. Poetry by each of you made a huge impression on me as a child 30 odd years ago and so to be here today able to ask you questions and share your poetry – it’s a magical thing and much treasured experience.

Display Comments Add a Comment

One of the most enjoyable author/illustrator talks I heard this year was that given by Alex Milway, at the FCBG Conference in February. His talk was so full of energy and joy thatthe whole audience got swept up with his positive, enthusiastic and amusing presentation.

Alex is a writer and artist with a passion for small furry things. His first books were about mice. He then moved on to yetis. Now he’s got a new series featuring an anxious hamster and perhaps the world’s most adventurous, optimistic (non-furry) pig.

Pigsticks and Harold are Tuptown’s accidental comedy duo. Pigsticks is the last in a long and noble line of pigs and he his determined to uphold his family’s name for adventure, bravery and erudition. Harold (the hamster) has a passion for cake that drives pretty much everything he does. They’re the perfect foil for each other, and whilst they undertake their quests with utmost seriousness, we as readers get to giggle and delight in the absurd and awkward situations in which they keep finding themselves.

Last month I caught up with Alex and got to quiz him a little about his books, his approach to life, and his own personal love of cakes.

Zoe: Pigsticks or Harold? Who do you identify more with and why?

Alex: I identify with both of them, they’re the Yin and Yang of Milway! Some days I wake up feeling that anything is possible (these are Pigsticks days!), and others I wake up feeling that the world is a little too full-on and I’d rather stay inside, bake a cake, mow the lawn or even read a book (these are Harold days, of course!).

I suppose, the thing about both characters is that they’re achievers different ways. Harold is excellent at the details and the small things in life that are taken for granted, and Pigsticks is excellent at the big gestures, the things that make the news headlines. Life needs both types of people, and both should be celebrated equally.

Zoe: You trained as a fine artist – can you tell me a bit more about this, about what medium/media you specialised in, and whether fine art still has any time in your life?

Alex: I went to art school and specialised in fine art painting. This was just a front for me to get in a band, I think, but I did love painting. I used to paint in oils – large, 8 foot long canvases of landscapes – and though I dabble in acrylics, I’ve never really had the studio or ventilation system to work with oils at home. I still have the desire to paint in much the same way as I have the desire to draw. It’s just that drawing is far easier to achieve with two young children. I have so many hobbies, all of which battle for space and time, but I do hope that one day I’ll get back to the canvases. You can see remnants of my art history education littered throughout the Pigsticks’ books in the shape of pig painting. It’s still very important to me. I actually think I’m most happy and create my best work when there’s a brush in my hand. (The moment I drew P&H with a brush pen was the moment they really came alive.)

Zoe: You strike me as full of life, enthusiasm and energy; when I saw you talk back in February I think everyone left that session feeling joyous. You’ve also written about how you like big ideas and exciting adventures, just giving things a go and getting stuff out there. Where does this positive and generous attitude to life come from? How do you nurture this?

Alex: Yikes! There’s a question. I do have a boundless energy for life, that’s for sure. I also believe that life is something to be shared with others, so if I can help people I will. It’s much better to have others to go along on the ride with, isn’t it? And maybe some infectious enthusiasm helps in reaching that goal.

I think, ultimately, I find wonder in everything, and I fear for the day that I don’t. I like to be inquisitive and ask questions of things and people: how does that work? How did they do that? What would it take to get something like that off the ground? And ultimately, I then look into how I can do it or make it for myself. Time is usually the one thing that defeats me in my grand schemes.

This attitude can be tiring (for me and my family) and costly, but it usually results in something to eat or something to use or look at (my family loved me once I’d learned to make Viennese Whirls – and I’m forced on pain of death to make cheesecake ice cream regularly.)

I fully believe that skill is something learned – sure, it takes time and patience to get good at things, but if you try then there’s every chance you’ll succeed. Just try it. I see myself as a jack-of-all-trades, and maybe one day I’ll get really good at something.

I do all I can to instil this attitude in children when I visit schools – that’s more important to me than selling books really – and I guess maybe that came through in the talk I gave earlier in the year. It’s a proper Wayne’s World – “If you book them they will come!” – sort of approach to life. If ever I start to doubt something is possible I just have to remind myself that someone else has done it before, so why can’t I? A lot of things are achieved by simply starting them. If I’d never tried writing a book ten years ago, for example, (and that’s a total Pigsticks attitude) I’d never be where I am now. Good grief it took time and effort, but it paid off.

Zoe: When I heard you at the FCBG conference you had just come back from pitching Pigsticks and Harold to a TV company – what’s the latest on this? It seems to me that animation has to feature in your life sometime soon as it has been a thread in your creative life for a long time – from being inspired by Miyasaki’s Laputa, to dreaming of animation at art school, to your interest in making models and dioramas.

Alex: We’re still on the road to funding. I’m ever hopeful it will happen, one day. But to be honest, how many people get the chance to stand on a stage and see their characters come to life on a huge cinema screen behind them? That glowing, wonderful three-minute trailer we showed at the Cartoon Forum can never be taken away from me, can it? [Zoe adds: You can watch the Pigsticks and Harold trailer here]

And as for animation, I love it so much. I love the science of it, the production of it, the modelmaking… I can’t shout about it enough.

And what I love is that it can be a very contained, one/two-person pursuit, in much the same way writing and illustrating a book is. One day I will build sets and make a film. (Funnily enough, I’ve started drawing set designs and writing a script for a Pigsticks play. You’ve got to try these things, eh? I’ve got songs, and characters, how does PIGSTICKS: THE MUSICAL sound?)

Zoe: I for one say YES PLEASE to a Pigsticks and Harold musical!

Now, I know you’re a keen maker of bits and bobs to go with your books – what do you enjoy about this, how does it help your writing/illustrating work? Are there plans for official Pigsticks and Harold merchandise (perhaps to go with the west end musical)? Is there a tension between creating official merchandise and DIY book paraphernalia? 

Alex: I’m the king of bits and bobs. I don’t know much about the merchandising side of things, to be honest, but with many of the crafty ‘fan’ things available on places like Etsy, as long as you aren’t selling them for profit, I think you’re safe. I mean, if someone makes a knitted Harold, that’s a wonderful thing isn’t it?

As for the models, I actually really like seeing things fully realised. I like seeing the full potential of a creation – where can I take this idea? You certainly see a character in a different light when you look at them strolling through a model landscape.

It’s actually a definite concern when designing characters that they can be made in three dimensions – and also issues like “does it have a mouth?” It’s funny, but since working on character studies for the animation company, Pigsticks is far more often drawn with a mouth. You can see this change occur gradually throughout the two books.

The realities of children’s book publishing mean that though the book is the key product, selling rights for films and branding/merchandising opportunities have to be considered. This is no easy game, so you have to make the most of what you have to sell, don’t you?

Zoe: Maybe next Christmas, lots of kids will be getting mini hamsters and pigs in their stockings…

You’ve said elsewhere that you think “all books should have pictures” – I agree! What are some of your favourite illustrated books which aren’t picture books?

Alex: I always get excited by pictures – and I think it’s definitely the case that today’s culture is far more visual than it ever was. I also think children more immediately respond to pictures over words. They’re a great initial selling point for a book.

I really like illustrations when they interact and play in and around the text, which may be in part due to my background in magazines. It’s probably easier for author/illustrators to make books like this because of the ramifications of working it all out, but maybe that’s why they interest me so much. These books can feel like a middle ground between comics and novels, and though they’re not so easy to read aloud in front of a class, children cope really well with stories told like this. They just take it on board that sometimes the pictures tell the story, sometimes the words do, and sometimes you need a bit of both with a speech bubble. These sort of books certainly help the medium of children’s books hold its own against the visual fizz of cartoons and computer games.

It’s pretty safe to say that picture books have done it for years, but novels are catching up. The granddaddy of this is clearly the fabulous Captain Underpants, though there are many contemporary author/illustrators doing it. I like to think that there’s a bit of a movement happening amongst children’s books, that’s driving better and more visually exciting work.

It takes a designer that’s up for the challenge, but having words and pictures exploding around the page can really take books into the stratosphere. Just look at the design and success of the Tom Gates books.

And what I also like about books like this is that they’re often exciting, playful and fun stories – ideal material for getting kids into books in the first place. They’re great stepping stones into reading.

Some friends of mine are doing brilliant work that’s incredibly inspiring to me. I’m really lucky with my peer group. For example, Sarah McIntyre is making lovely work with Philip Reeve. There you find pictures enveloping words and jostling for command of the page in a really exciting way. David O’Connell’s Monster and Chips books were excellent, full of humour and packed with art and comic lettering. I’m also very excited to see what Gary Northfield is doing with his new Julius Zebra books about animal gladiators. I’ve seen the nearly finished manuscript and it’s amazing.

It’s a great time to be making books like this. They might get pushed aside for more worthy – maybe even wordy – books when it comes to awards, but they’ll do more for sparking a love affair with reading amongst children than any of them.

Zoe: What are you reading for sheer enjoyment at the moment and what book would you most like to receive for Christmas?

Alex: I dip into lots of books all at the same time, which makes a question like this very hard. I read a lot of biography and history books, often for research, but I did recently read Gideon Defoe’s Pirates in an Adventure with the Romantics. ‘The Pirates in an adventure with…’ books make me laugh and giggle like an idiot, and that’s very intoxicating …

I have asked for The Art of Smallfilms for Christmas, and I better had get it… There are no people more inspirational to me than Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate. I think Oliver Postgate is the archetypal Pigsticks character. Maybe even Peter Firmin is his Harold?

Zoe: Oh yes, I can definitely see the Pigsticsk – Oliver Postgate connection. I do hope the film turns up under your Christmas tree! Many thanks Alex, for such a lovely interview, and for instilling in me a fresh dose of enthusiasm and can-do feeling towards life!

Alex Milway’s website: http://www.alexmilway.com/
Alex Milway on Twitter: @Alexmilway

Do return tomorrow when I’ve got a Pigsticks and Harold giveaway!

Display Comments Add a Comment

Over the Hills and Far Away: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes from Around the World compiled by Elizabeth Hammill and illustrated by 77 different artists is one of those books you might buy as a gift for someone, but then find it impossible to part with. It is one of the most beautiful and interesting books I’ve seen this year, offering doors into children’s lives around the world with rich and varied anthology of nursery rhymes from places as far apart as China and Canada, India and Ireland.

There are illustrations from so many of the very best children’s book illustrators working today, including Ian Beck, Eric Carle, Emma Chichester Clark, Ted Dewan, Polly Dunbar, Michael Foreman, Bob Graham, Mini Grey, Mark Hearld, Pat Hutchins, Shirley Hughes, Satoshi Kitamura, Jon Klassen, John Lawrence, Jerry Pinkney, Shaun Tan, and many more. For anyone who cares at all about children’s book illustration, opening this book is like entering the most heavenly sweet shop you’ve ever dreamed of.

Matching the stunning and highly varied illustrations, the choice of nursery rhymes also reflects an extremely interesting and rich mix of the well known (in the UK and US) and the more unusual; rhymes from Yiddish, First Nation, Caribbean and Latino traditions are included, sometimes alongside more familiar verses, allowing reading and listener to draw parallels and make connections around the world.

As well as featuring stunning art from some of the best known book illustrators around the English-speaking world, there are also illustrations from three artists who are just starting out in the field. Sian Jenkins, Holly Sterling and Pippa Curnick were the winners of The Over the Hills and Faraway / Diverse Voices Illustration competition for unpublished Illustration students and I recently interviewed all three of them about their work. Below you can read how our conversation flowed:

Zoe: What journeys did you take to now arrive here, as a published illustrator?

Sian Jenkins: I have always known that I wanted a career based around art, even from a very early age, but it wasn’t until I joined an art foundation course that I found my love for illustration. My foundation course allowed me to try various different art mediums, and although I enjoyed the majority of them, it made me realise how much I missed simply drawing.

When I started my illustration course in University, I was still full of uncertainty, as although I had chosen my career to be an illustrator, I was unsure down which path I wanted to go. During the first year, we were given a project on picture books and I knew straight away that it was right for me. I started collecting many picture books, finding both new illustrators and rediscovering my love for books such as ‘Winnie the Pooh’ and ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’. But it was really the more contemporary illustrators such as Petr Horacek, Eric Carle and Mark Hearld that inspired me the most. I love their individual way of working, and how each they approach their work using collage.

Holly Sterling: Pictures and books have always been apart of my life. I loved reading as a child and found the pictures even more fascinating.

I remember writing out poems from my books and creating my own illustrations for them from a young age. My mum would staple the pages together like a ‘real’ book for me.

I remember a particular moment in Year 5 when we created our own version of Monet’s ‘Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies’. My head teacher came to examine our work and had picked mine out as being ‘particularly advanced’. Hearing such positive feedback at a young age had such an impact on me. It was from this moment that I started to grow in confidence and showing a increasing passion for art.

My parents and my Grandad had noticed my growing enthusiasm. I started spending time painting with my Grandad who was a keen watercolourist. During these sessions, I started to learn about the technical side to painting. He really was my largest influence and my biggest fan!

When I was eleven, my family moved from London to Kent. I could have chosen to go to a Grammar School for my secondary years, but I wanted nothing more than to attend Astor College for the Arts in Dover, which promoted both visual and performing arts. The teachers from art department were so encouraging and really pushed me to follow my dreams… to follow a career in art/design.

I went to the University of Sunderland to study Illustration and Design. I graduated with first class honours. During my time at Sunderland I developed a strong interest in different printing techniques and creating characters. It was during this course that I realised that a career in picture books is what I really wanted.

After graduating I decided that it was time to work! I got a job at Design Company through Sunderland University’s Internship Scheme. It was here that gained my first industry experience, developed my technical skills, worked directly with clients and became business-minded.

With picture books still being my true passion, I decided that I needed to go back to university to do my Masters. I felt as though I still needed more time to develop as an illustrator and had so much more to discover. I studied at Edinburgh College of Art on a two-year course. This is the place that I really found myself! We were lucky to have amazing tutors, but we also had a lot of external support from other illustrators and authors.

The fabulous author Vivian French was so influential during my time in Edinburgh. She instils such confidence in her students and goes far and beyond to help them on the road to success. I will forever be indebted to her!

Pippa Curnick: When I was little I wanted to be an RAF pilot, but unfortunately I am incredibly short, and my eyesight is pretty terrible! Throughout my school years I aspired to a whole range of careers, from wanting to be a farmer, to an astrophysicist. I always struggled to choose one particular subject as I really did love them all – I enjoyed and, in fact still do enjoy, learning about anything and everything. It wasn’t until I was 17, and desperately rushing to get through my maths and physics homework just so I could have time to draw before I got in bed, that I realised what I loved more than anything else, was drawing. I went on to study for my Foundation at Camberwell College of Art, which not only opened my mind to trying different techniques, but also gave me confidence that I could make a career out of being creative.

I studied Illustration at the University of Derby and graduated with a first in 2012. I chose illustration because I have always enjoyed creating stories and characters. I read continuously as a child and I absolutely loved picture books. The Quangle Wangle’s Hat by Edward Lear (Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury) was read over and over again in our house and I always pestered my parents to show me all the pictures again and again.

A key point in my career was getting a job as a Designer for Alison Green Books, an imprint of Scholastic Children’s Books. I have spent the last two years working with some of the best illustrators and authors of books for children. I have learned so much about the publishing industry and how to make a good portfolio, as well as technical skills like how to lay files out in InDesign- which has been really useful in my own illustration career.

I am now a freelance illustrator and designer. My main inspiration is the natural world – I love drawing animals and scenery and the characters I create are often based on the creatures I see in the garden. I am also inspired by artists such as Meg Hunt, Chuck Groenink and Helen Stephens.

Zoe: How do you prefer to work? What sort of media and techniques are important in the way you make art?

Sian Jenkins: The first time I felt confident in my way of working was when I entered a competition for Penguin Books. It was the first time that I had experimented with digital collage, and although my work wasn’t selected I was very happy with the direction my work had gone. I felt that I had finally found a way of approaching illustration in my own way. I have used this method of working ever since, and continue to develop it further.

My current method of working is to draw out my idea traditionally, and to work digitally from the scanned image. I build up my illustrations using various textures and patterns from both those that I have found, and those I have created myself. I tend to focus on animals as the main subject of my work, and I try to keep my illustrations fairly simplistic, although I would love to experiment with creating busier illustrations in the near future.

Holly Sterling: I love creating texture! I do this with a variety of different mark making processes including painting, mono-print, rubber stamps, rubbings and strong drawn lines. Creating marks like this is so experimental that it encourages me to stay loose, and in turn, create energetic illustrations.

Once I have all of the elements that I need, I scan them in them digitally. Although I do use Photoshop, it is important to me that I maintain the energetic quality and texture in my work that I create whilst making my marks. I use a soft pencil to create the strong drawn lines that are prominent in my work.

Pippa Curnick: I create my artwork digitally, but like to combine traditional techniques to give it more depth and texture. I always begin any project with drawings in my sketchbook. I have to be able to get my ideas on to paper quickly, and sometimes I have flashes of inspiration when I’m out and about, so using a computer isn’t always possible. I carry my sketchbook wherever I go and scribble ideas in it on a daily basis. Some of these ideas never make it off the page, but if I’m taken with an idea or a character I will scan my sketch in and start working on it digitally. I use a lot of hand painted textures and find that using digital techniques allows me to have a greater level of control over the image.

For me, though, the most important part of my process is the initial drawing. There is definitely something about holding pencil over a clean sheet of paper- that mild terror that what you’re going to draw won’t turn to to be as good as it is in your head. I think this process, and overcoming this fear is a vital part in the way I work, as it always challenges the way I think about a character or idea.

Zoe: Can you tell us a little bit about entering the Frances Lincoln/Seven Stories Nursery Rhyme Illustration competition? Why did you choose to illustrate the rhyme(s) you did? How did you set about illustrating the rhyme?

Sian Jenkins:I was in my second year of University when I entered the Seven Stories competition, and was still experimenting with my method of working. I was presented with three choices of rhyme to illustrate, but the one that stood out for me was ‘This Little Pig Went To Market’, as it is a rhyme that I recognise from growing up. I instantly chose this rhyme as the one I wanted to illustrate, as I already had a connection to it. The first thought that I had of this rhyme was as a counting toe rhyme, as this is how it was taught to me. I then played around with the idea of the pigs in the rhyme being the toes themselves, and giving each ‘toe’ a character of its own to match the rhyme.

Getting the phone call to say that my entry had won for that rhyme was such a wonderful feeling. I was aware of Seven Stories being a charity that encourages children to read and enjoy books, and so I felt that I had been chosen to be part of something very special. I have learnt so much during the process of ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ being published, and it has been a fantastic start to what I hope to be a successful career in picture book illustration.

Holly Sterling: As soon as a saw the brief for the competition, I knew that this was one that I had to enter.

Coming from a mix of English and Jamaican blood, representing diversity in picture book is something that I have been passionate about for a long time. This subject matter was the main focus of my theoretical studies during both my undergraduate and Masters courses.

I think it is important for all children to see themselves represented in the books they read. The ‘Over the Hills’ competition was a perfect chance for me to potentially be apart of a huge celebration of people from all over the world.

The competition brief asked for students to choose one of three double page spreads to illustrate. Initially I wanted to illustrate the one with the Jamaican rhyme (being half Jamaican), but as soon as I read the African American and Maori lullabies, I knew that this was the one I had to illustrate.

The two main points that stood out to me were the strong bond between the father and daughter and the overall dreamlike quality. As both verses gave me a similar feeling, I thought it would be nice to visually weave them together. To suggest the tenderness between the two characters, I visually created a strong embrace. To represent the dreamlike quality I decided to illustrate the weeping tears changing into the galloping horses mentioned in the text.

I think that as an illustrator, you should always try to draw on your own experiences in life to make something really honest and believable. In this instance I was representing my own relationship with my Dad.

Living in the North East, I love to be involved in anything and everything ‘Seven Stories’. The work they do with both adults and children is totally inspiring on so many levels.

It was an absolute honour to have my work chosen for this publication by such talented and influential people in the picture book industry. This has been the perfect start to a career in picture books.

Following on from the success of this competition, Frances Lincoln asked me to illustrate a new picture book for them called ‘15 Thing Not to Do With a Baby’. I’m looking forward to it being published in January 2015.

Pippa Curnick: As soon as I read the rhymes for “Abna Babna…” I knew that I wanted to illustrate that spread in particular. I loved the flow of the rhymes and, a little like The Quangle Wangle’s hat, there was a kind of nonsense to the words that meant I could be really creative and draw a whole range of weird and wonderful things. It was such a wonderful opportunity to be creative and I really loved the ethos behind the project, too.

***********************

I’m delighted to have been able to highlight this breathtakingly beautiful and nourishingly diverse book and hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about the three début illustrators. My advice would be to buy two copies of this book straight away (if you want to find out more about it, do read this article by Elizabeth Hammill, which appeared in Books for Keeps). It will avoid any gift-giving dilemmas, and you’ll be doing some good at the same time: All proceeds from the sales of Over the Hills and Far Away will be donated to Seven Stories, the national centre for children’s Books in the United Kingdom, to help them save, celebrate and share the wonderful world of children’s books.

Disclosure: I was sent a review copy of Over the Hills and Far Away by the publisher.

Display Comments Add a Comment

When I first started planning hat week, I knew I wanted to invite the wonderful Sarah McIntyre, illustrator and writer of picture books and comics extraordinaire to take part. The creator of Vern and Lettuce, Princess Spaghetti and half of the all singing all dancing Oliver and the Seawigs and Cakes in Space team Sarah has serious form when it comes to hats. Her hats are book events are legendary. She has even been called a “celebrity hat stand”…

Thus it is with huge delight and a great sense of honour that I’ve a guest post today from Sarah McIntyre, all about her love of hats. It is time to doff mine and let Sarah take the floor…

“I daydream a lot. I love my job, but sometimes I wonder, what would I do if I wasn’t illustrating children’s books?

I’ve contemplated taking various jobs, including:

a window dresser (I watched Mannequin too many times when I was a kid)

a medical illustrator (my biology teacher said I made good dissection drawings)

an archaeologist (I thought Indiana Jones was awesome)

a journalist (I tried it but found it too high-pressure)

a ship’s rigger (I interviewed for this job once but didn’t get it)

a shoemaker (I know exactly what kind of shoes I want and I can never find them)

a milliner

Okay, this last one. I’m not actually a hat maker, but funnily enough, my job has let me make little forays into this world of wearable sculpture. I don’t get very excited about the world of fashion; it’s mostly intended for skinny people and I’ve watched The Devil Wears Prada. I don’t understand all that stuff about stilettos and expensive handbags.

I used to think I needed to wear slimming black and try to all but make myself disappear because I wasn’t a standard size, but south-east London has changed me. A large Afro-Caribbean population live in my neighbourhood and, let me tell you, a lot of those women don’t let a bit of WEIGHT stop them from looking absolutely fabulous. I adore their block-printed fabric designs. Here are some of my African-print dresses, from Sika Designs in Greenwich, and Esther Marfo in New Cross.

And the outfits on these Nigerian and Ghanaian ladies don’t stop with curve-enhancing dresses in bold patterns, their bright colours rise two or three feet up into the air with incredible head wraps. On a Sunday morning when people are going to church, the bus stop can look like a sea of giant fancy sweet wrappers. It’s glorious!

Making books has given me lots of reasons to dress up, and if I’m doing a stage event, I can go as over-the-top as I want; my only limits are whether I can fit the outfit onto the train or into the airplane. Here’s a six-foot-tall wig made out of purple clingfilm:

In fact, I almost didn’t fit into my Oliver and the Seawigs book launch. I hadn’t counted having to pass through a glass door before ascending to the deck of the Golden Hinde ship. Here’s a photo of my editor helping me through. (Thank goodness for my dignity, I didn’t have to crawl.)

The other thing that has changed for me is that I used to think comfort was the most important thing in dressing. But there’s a certain amount of discomfort that’s worth it, because it’s so fun seeing people’s jaws drop in surprise. This alien cake hat, for the Cakes in Space launch, for instance. It was quite heavy and clopped me hard on the forehead whenever I jumped in the air (because one does jump in the air, in stage events). But when I’d squeeze the hidden valve and its mouth would open, I’d have a wonderful time watching people gape. Some kids would obsess over it, trying to figure out how it worked, or if it really was alive.

My sculptor friend Eddie Smith helped me with both the giant Seawig and the Cake. He’s a Royal Academy sculptor and has done lots of Proper Art Stuff, but he’s loved doing something a bit different.

For Jampires, I tried to find a Bakewell Tart fascinator on the Internet, and there were lots, but they were all too SMALL. So I made this one out of a sprinkler attachment from the pound shop, a children’s ball (also from the pound shop), a foam pizza base, the plastic lid from a Christmas pudding, some felt, lace, fabric and glitter.

My Summer Reading Challenge Medusa hat was also a pound shop marvel: a green pencil case, craft pipe cleaners, a yoghurt pot and a bit of painted foam. (I’m sure the Duchess of Cornwall wears very similar things herself.)

If you go on to my Hats Pinterest page, you can see lots more things I’ve worn! Some of them I’ve made, and some of them I’ve customised, from vintage hats I’ve found in second-hand shops. It doesn’t take much to make a quiet hat into a startling headpiece; just stick on some large feathers or a big bow, or a ship, or a giant octopus. Some day I may make a book exclusively about hats, but for now, go check out David Roberts‘ fab new picture book with Andrea Beaty, Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau, inspired by his favourite hat makers.

I do daydream about taking a year off to go study under someone such as Philip Treacy and make all sorts of wild headgear. But for now, I’ll be content with doing it as a job sideline… so much fun to be had!”

*************

So now you can see why I wanted Sarah to be part of my Hat Week extravaganza, can’t you! Do you have a favourite among Sarah’s hats?

Sarah McIntyre’s most recent books include Cakes in Space with Philip Reeve and Jampires with David O’Connell. Visit the book websites for fun activities!

Website & blog: jabberworks.co.uk
Twitter: @jabberworks
Hats Pinterest page: http://www.pinterest.com/mcintyre1000/my-hats/

Display Comments Add a Comment

What’s a life without love, even if that love is a bit wonky and not quite what you expected?

Madame Chapeau, the latest creation from the finely paired team of Andrea Beaty and David Roberts, does her best to send little flights of joy and love out into the world, by making hats that perfectly match each of her clients. She’s imaginative, attentive and playful with what she creates, and her customers are delighted. However, poor Madame Chapeau lives alone. There clearly once was someone important in her life, but now, on her birthday she is left dining without close company.

What makes it even harder to bear is that her most treasured hat has been lost en route to her solo birthday meal. Passers-by try to help by offering their own hats to Madame Chapeau, and although their kindness is appreciated. nothing is quite right.

But then up steps a secret admirer, who has been watching Madame Chapeau for some time. A young girl, clearly fascinated by the hats Madame Chapeau creates, offers the milliner a little something she has been working on. It’s rather odd, but this gift has been made with much love and turns out to be the best sort of birthday present Mme Chapeau could have wished for. A new friendship is formed and – one suspects – a new hat maker begins her training.

This is a whimsical and charming book which celebrates creativity, generosity and thoughtfulness from start to finish. Beaty’s rhyming text tells a heart-warming tale, but Roberts’ detailed and exuberant illustrations steal the show. With lots of famous hats to spot (look out for Princess Beatrice’s hat, for example, or Charlie Chaplin’s Derby) and fabulous fashion, food and architectural details to pour over, this book rewards repeated readings. Happy Birthday Madame Chapeau is a joyous, life-affirming read and if that isn’t enough of a reason to seek it out, do read Maria Popova’s commentary on the subtle message this book has about diversity and cultural stereotypes.

We brought Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau to life by customizing our own hats with pom-poms (these play an important role in the book).

Beanie type hats, plus some colourful craft pompoms make for some enjoyably silly headgear – perfect as winter approaches

I wonder what David Roberts would make of our hats? I ask this because it turns out he was himself a milliner before he became an illustrator. From a young age he had an interest in fashion, making clothes for his sister and her dolls, before going on to study fashion design at college. From this, a special love and skill with hats grew – a love and eye that can clearly be seen in his Madame Chapeau illustrations. I asked David if he would share a little about his love of hats, how it developed and what he finds so enjoyable about making hats. Here’s what he had to say:-

“As a kid I was fascinated by Mrs Shilling, and the hats her son David made that she wore to Ascot. They were so theatrical that it would make the news! I loved how she wore these amazing and often bizarre creations with such style and elegance – even if the hat was ridiculous she never looked ridiculous in it.”

David Shilling with his mother Gertrude Shilling. Photo: Sidney Harris

“So when I had the option to do a course in millinery while studying for a degree in fashion design at Manchester Polytechnic, I jumped at the chance, and from then on I was hooked.”

“I love the sculptural aspect of millinery; a hat can be so individual, so singular, a one off. It’s so exciting to have all your elements to create a hat, cloth, wire, glue, buckram, feathers, beads, tulle, net and just let something evolve in your hands. It can turn in to anything really – an abstract shape or something natural like a plant or a flower.”

Stephen Jones, surrounded by some of his hat creations, London, circa 1985. Photo: Christopher Pillitz

“I worked for Stephen Jones for 5 years make his couture hats , where I learned so many skills. And although I loved making his imaginative creations, I stared to realise that I wanted to try my hand at illustrating children’s books – the other great passion in my life.”

“I am glad I made the step in to illustration, but I do still love to get the wire and beads and feathers out to make a hat once in a while. Madame Chapeau came about when the author Andrea Beaty heard that I had once been a milliner: She wrote the text for me and sent it from Chicago in a hat box! I was utterly captivated by it and enjoyed illustrating it and indulging myself once more in the wonderful world of millinery.”

My enormous thanks to David for sharing some of his millinery background with us today. His passion for hats shines through in his gorgeous illustrations for Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau. Don’t take my word for it – go and find a copy to enjoy yourselves!

Display Comments Add a Comment

Next month one of my all-time favourite illustrators will be visiting the UK, and in a dream come true, I’ll be getting to meet him. I’ve even bought a special hat for the occasion. (True! I’ll be sharing a photo after the event…)

Satoshi Kitamura will be in UK with the Children’s Book Show, talking all about his glorious, imaginative and utterly beautiful book Millie’s Marvellous Hat, one of the first books I ever reviewed on Playing by the book (and recently included in The Sunday Times 100 Children’s Modern Classics list).

He’ll be at the Oxford Playhouse on Friday 14th November and later that day he will be doing an event with the Japan Foundation in London. You’ll also get a chance to see Satoshi at the South Ken Kids’ Festival in London the following weekend, where he’s running a workshop, and engaging in a Drawing Duo with Aurélie Guillerey.

Even if you can’t make any of these events, please do join me today as I interview Satoshi, about hats, Japanese illustrators, and how his work has changed over his career so far.

Zoe: Millie’s Marvellous Hat is the most playful and wonderful of picture books. Millie can’t afford to buy a hat but she can imagine the hat she’d like to wear. Your book is full of incredible hats, each of which somehow reflects the character who is wearing it. I’d like to start by asking what hat you are wearing today? Is it a hat you often wear? What does your hat tell us about you?

(I can easily imagine you wearing a hat mixing your beautiful blues, plenty of cats and lots of music escaping into the air. In my head I’m wearing a hat with a peal of brightly coloured books cascading open, with lots of characters and sparks escaping from the pages.)

Satoshi: At the moment I’m listening to wonderful jazz music on the radio and my musical hat is becoming bigger and more colourful. I love all sorts of music. I wish I had some musical talent myself but unfortunately I have none. So I often put on my imaginary musical hat that makes interesting melodies and harmonies.

Zoe: I love the look and sound of your hat, Satoshi!

Can you share 3 or 4 key points on your journey to becoming an author and illustrator – key people, special books, serendipitous meetings, that sort of thing? What books did you enjoy as a child?

Satoshi: When I was a child I spent lots of time reading comics. Astroboy (Tetsuwan Atom) by Osamu Tezuka was my favourite and Shigeru Mizuki’s little spooky comics were excellent too. My elder brother influenced me a lot. He was keen on painting from an early age and by four or five I had started to draw with him. In our early teens we often went to art galleries together. The first one we went to was a big exhibition of Pierre Bonnard, the French painter.

I started making a picture book in my twenties. The most important person in my journey was Klaus Flugge, owner and publisher of Andersen Press. He gave me the story Angry Arthur by Hiawyn Oram and published it with my illustrations. That started my career. Klaus and I have been good friends ever since.

Zoe: I read that you once said “I like to ‘read between the lines ‘. It’s the same with poetry — it’s in that space between the lines that I find things to illustrate.”  You’ve illustrated several volumes of poetry (my girls favourite is John Agard’s Goldilocks on CCTV) – how is illustrating poetry different to illustrating a short story, a picture book text (if at all)? Do you go through a different process?

Satoshi: Illustrating short stories or picture book texts are narrative illustration in which you illustrate scenes that progress the story. Illustrating poetry is like answering a letter: a piece of fine poetry is a letter written to you and you answer it by showing what kind of image, feeling or sensation the poem created in your mind. You answer it with pictures.

Zoe: I understand that at the time of the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami you were working on a sequel to Millie’s Marvellous Hat. Is that sequel still on the cards? Or has its association with such a devastating event made it hard to finish?

Satoshi: The earthquake in 2011 was the most crucial incident in the recent history of Japan and we still live in its aftermath. Unfortunately since then the country seems to be heading in the wrong direction. The very right-wing government is becoming more aggressive and relationships with neighbouring countries are deteriorating unnecessarily. On the positive side, the earthquake made many of us more concerned about politics and about the technology our society relies upon.

However, these things do not affect my work directly. I have written a couple of stories for Millie but they are not as good as the first one. I’d love to do another book about Millie one day. I’ve done two short graphic novels recently. One is an adaptation of a Leonora Carrington short story and another was my own story inspired by one of Charles Simic‘s poems. I enjoyed working on them very much and would like to tell more stories in this way.

Zoe: You’ve been illustrating for over 30 years – what have you learned about illustrating in this time and how do you think your style has changed since you illustrated Angry Arthur? Have you changed the materials you use for illustrating?

Satoshi: I hope my illustrations are getting better, although I always feel that they are not quite good enough. Probably lots of artists feel this way – that life is too short, and they need two or three hundred years to develop his/her skills to the full. Or possibly I am a little immature!

I’ve never consciously changed my style. The changes come naturally. In terms of materials, I sometimes use new materials – for example, I paint with acrylics more often these days. In Beetle and Bug in the Grissel Hunt, written by Hiawyn Oram, I made a top using a biro and drew spiral patterns by spinning the top across the paper.

Zoe: In the past you lived for an extended period in Britain, but I believe you are now based back in Japan. How is the picture book landscape different in these two countries? What do you find works well in one place but not the other? What do you think each could learn from the other?

Satoshi: I’m a bit of an outsider in my own country, probably because I lived in UK for about 30 years. Strangely, my books are most popular in Latin America. I don’t know why but I see more books of mine in bookshops there than anywhere else. I have been invited to many book festivals in Mexico, Chile and Colombia. My books are not particularly popular in Japan but Millie’s Marvelous Hat will be a set book for second year primary school students in Japan from next year. Many years ago UFO Diary was in the English textbook for Japanese secondary school students.

Zoe: Could you recommend some Japanese illustrators we should look out for (whether or not they are available in translation)?

Satoshi: Ken Katayama is the most outstanding artist alive in picture books in Japan. Suekichi Akaba was another brilliant artist.

Zoe: Many thanks Satoshi – I’m really looking forward to meeting you next month!

You’ll have to wait a year for this, but November 2015 will see a brand new book from Satoshi:

Shh! Here’s a sneak peak from inside the pages…

Display Comments Add a Comment

Woozy the Wizard: A Spell to Get Well written by Elli Woollard and Al Murphy is the first in a new and very funny series of readers for children just gaining confidence in reading alone.

Woozy is a terribly well-meaning wizard who’s keen to help his friends, but more often than not he gets somewhat mixed up and his spells don’t quite do what they’re meant to. With the help of his pet pig Woozy flies around trying to sort things out, and in the process it becomes clear that whilst it may not be magic, it is certainly something quite magical that helps put the world to rights.

Lots of humour, great rhythm and rhyme (enormous aids when practising reading because they help with scanning a line, and predicting how words should be pronounced), and clear, bright and colourful illustrations all add up to a lovely book perfect to give to your emerging reader.

To celebrate the publication of I interviewed the author of Woozy the Wizard: A Spell to Get Well, Elli Woollard, about her work. Given Elli is a poet, I challenged her to answer me in rhyme….

Zoe: Rhyming seems to be in your blood. Where did this passion come from?

Elli Woollard: The thing about me is I sing quite a lot
(I rather enjoy it; the neighbours might not),
And I guess if you’re singing for much of the time
Your mind sort of slips into thinking in rhyme.

Zoe: How does your blog, where you regularly publish poems/works in progress, help you with your writing?

Elli Woollard: My blog’s like a sketchbook for scribbles and scrawls
And all of my mind’s muddly mess.
I write them all down, and sometimes I frown,
But some make me want to go ‘YES!’

Zoe: What would your ideal writing location/environment be like and why?

Elli Woollard: A hot cup of coffee, a warm purring cat;
There’s not much more that I need than that.
Working at home is really quite nice
(Except when the cat thinks my fingers are mice).

Zoe: What was the most magical part for you in the process of seeing Woozy the Wizard come to life as a printed book?

Elli Woollard: Writing, writing, is ever so exciting,
Especially when you’ve finished and say ‘Look!
All of my creations now come with illustrations!
Bloomin’ heck, I think I wrote a book!’

Zoe: What tips do you have for kids who love to write poetry?

Elli Woollard: Use your ears, use your eyes, use your heads, use your feet,
Stand up proud, read aloud, and just listen to that beat.
Feel the rhythm, feel the vibes of the poetry you’ve heard,
And think about the magic that’s in every single word.

Zoe: Which poets for children do you like to read?

Elli Woollard: Donaldson (Julia), Rosen (Mike),
Lear (Edward) and Milligan (Spike),
I could go on, and write a long list,
But so many good ones I know would get missed.

Zoe: Thanks Elli! I’m already looking forward to the next outing for Woozy, in spring 2015!

Display Comments Add a Comment

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor By Jon Scieszka and Brian Biggs is the first in series of highly illustrated books, ideal for the 8-12 crowd, which encourage readers to explore how things work and get experimenting themselves.

Given our recent foray into tinkering, Frank Einstein is my new favourite scientist.

The brain child of Jon Scieszka, Frank loves to tinker, using old household appliances to create robots which one day come to life. There’s lots of real science, a good dose of silly science-fiction, adventure, and a whole lot of fun.

Although Jon Scieszka has sold over 11 million books, he’s not as well know over here in the UK as he is in his native US. But later this week he arrives on our shores ready to take Brits by storm I took his impending invasion as an opportunity to interview him; I hope you’ll enjoy what he had to say and be tempted to seek out Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, which I highly recommend.

Zoe: Hi Jon, I’m honoured and delighted to have the opportunity to put some questions to you in advance of your UK tour. In the US you’re something of a superstar but perhaps it is fair to say that over here in the UK you’re not quite so well known. So to get us started, what are the three most important things we should know about you?

Jon Scieszka:

1. My name is pronounced: SHEH-ska

2. I am Roald Dahl’s much younger brother

3. My job is to make things up

4. And also bend rules

Zoe: Ha! I like what you’ve done there Jon
I think I should also add:

5. Jon was the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in the United States, a position which is roughly equivalent to the UK’s Children’s Laureate.

6. Jon has written over 45 books, and

7. Jon founded the literacy programme Guys Read. (More on this below…)

Given your family background, Jon, did you ever consider becoming a professional wrestler? …I’m thinking here of your brothers, and how this along with going to an all boys’ school may have influenced your outlook on life…

Jon Scieszka: After growing up with 5 brothers, teaching elementary school for ten years, and raising a son and daughter, I pretty much am a professional wrestler. Also a pro golfer, chef, babysitter, racecar driver, garage cleaner, and dog poop picker-upper.

Zoe: You’re coming over to the UK in October to spread the word about the first book in a new series, Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, a brilliant collision of fact, science and fun all about a kid who just loves to figure things out for himself, run experiments and make machines. What were the key points on your journey to seeing Frank Einstein released into kids’ hands around the world?

Jon Scieszka: I always loved science, studied in college to be a doctor, and ended up teaching science in elementary school. Having been a teacher, my writing is always about intriguing my readers to ask why. So I thought up FRANK EINSTEIN, kid inventor genius as a great way to introduce kids to all of Science, conveniently broken down into 6 illustrated books.

With an evil genius.

And an evil sidekick chimpanzee named Mr. Chimp.

Zoe: You strike me as a bit of a renaissance man: You love science and maths, but you also crazy for fairy tales, myths and legends. Where did this come from?

Jon Scieszka: I had a wonderfully supportive mom and dad, and a great education where I was always encouraged to study everything and anything that interested me. So I took both literature classes and comparative anatomy classes. I read comic books and Tristram Shandy. And I think it was my myth and religion studies that lead me to fairy tales and legends. Well, that and Bugs Bunny cartoons and Mad magazine and Rocky and Bullwinkle’s Fractured Fairy Tales

Zoe: Humour is incredibly important to you and your writing. Do you think there is such as thing as an American sense of humour which is different to a UK sense of humour (especially when it comes to kids)?

Jon Scieszka: There is something different about the US and UK senses of humor. But I’m not sure what that difference is. I am a huge fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Little Britain, Terry Pratchett, Eddie Izzard, Python, my older brother Roald Dahl, Wallace and Gromit, Steve Coogan, Simon Pegg, and some of Philip Ardagh’s work.

With kids I think the humor difference is often just a matter of vocabulary.

In the US, the fox’s line of dialogue in The Stinky Cheese Man story, “What is that funky smell?” gets huge laughs. Everywhere. I think because it sounds to the American ear, very much like another, very inappropriate f-word. But that line just doesn’t get the same laughs in the UK.

Zoe: I was racking my brains for a joke about noodles as I know you love them a lot and I came across this one – I’m not sure if it will make you smile or groan! – but would you share a favourite joke of yours?

Jon Scieszka: A recent favourite told to me by a second grader: What is brown and smells and sits in the woods? Winnie the Poo.

Zoe: [Groaning] …Something else which you’re passionate about is getting boys reading. In the UK boys typically do less well in reading tests and enjoy reading less than their female classmates – a situation which mirrors that in the US to some extent. You decided to try and do something about this by setting up Guys Read – please can you tell us a little about it?

Jon Scieszka: Boys not reading is a worldwide problem. In the US, boys have tested lower in reading in every age group for every one of the last 30 years that kids have been tested. But there has been no federal effort to address this.

I started Guys Read ten years ago first to just get people to realize that boys are having trouble, and second to try some practical solutions to get boys engaged in reading – like allowing them to read texts they enjoy, expanding the definition of reading to include humor, science fiction, graphic storytelling, non-fiction; and providing male role models for reading.

The website guysread.com collects texts that boys like to read, and suggests them to other guys.

Zoe: Are there any UK Field Offices? If someone wanted to start one, what would your advice be?

Jon Scieszka: We do have one very fine field office at the International School of Aberdeen. But there should absolutely be more UK branches. Go to the Start Your Own section of the website (http://www.guysread.com/program/) and get cracking, UK! It’s all there.

Zoe: As part of Guys Read you’ve edited and contributed to a series of themed short story books all targeted specifically at boys – their titles all make it clear that these are books for boys. I personally hate seeing books labelled as “for girls” as such titles seem to me to only pigeonhole what girls and young women can be and might like. Why is it ok to have books categorically labelled as “for boys” (or even “guys”)?

Jon Scieszka: The Guys Read Library of Great Reading is curated to give boys a reason to want to be readers. My experiences as a parent, a teacher, and a book writer have all shown me that the most effective way to inspire boys to be readers is to give them something they are interested in reading; and that in the most broad strokes, many boys are interested in types of reading that are different from what interests girls. These genre-themed short story collections aren’t meant to limit or exclude anyone. They are simply offered as a wide range of stories (written by great male and female authors) that boys can peruse … and hopefully find an author that inspires them to want to read more.

Zoe: Recently there was a lot of debate and even anger here in the UK about the gendered marketing of books, a debate sparked by the author Jonathan Emmett, who argues that the UK “picture book industry reflects girls’ tastes more than it does boys’ and that this bias is exacerbating the gender gap between boys’ and girls’ reading abilities.”

To what extent do you think the same could be said for the US market?

Jon Scieszka: I think Jonathan Emmett made a very thoughtful, considered, statistical, and careful presentation about the realities of children’s publishing. The statistics and challenges he mentions for the UK are very much the same in the US. Here elementary school teachers, librarians, children’s booksellers, and children’s book prize committee members are mostly women. It is not unreasonable to wonder if this gender inequality might influence what is produced and bought and awarded in children’s books.

And I think the anger this question provokes is more about gender inequality in the wider world at large than just about kids’ books.

Zoe: Ok, so that was a pretty hefty couple of questions I guess, so now a couple of easier ones to wind down with! What’s the last book you read?

Jon Scieszka: I just finished Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, and Edward Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles of the Western World.

Zoe: Who would your dream dinner party guests be and why?

Jon Scieszka: I would invite Auguste Escoffier to cook, Baron Rothschild and Madame Clicquot for beverages, Ursula Nordstrom and Maurice Sendak for kids book thoughts, Napoleon for a dash of military history, comedian Hannibal Buress for long funny stories, and Bugs Bunny for surreal relief.

Zoe: Would you serve noodles or stinky cheese at the party or something else entirely?

Jon Scieszka: That will be up to Monsieur Escoffier.

Zoe: And if your dinner guests begged you to read an excerpt from one of the things you’re working on right now, what would you read them?

Jon Scieszka: I think I would distract them with a dramatic reading of one of my favourite books: Go, Dog.Go! I never read unfinished pieces of stories I am working on to anyone.

Zoe: Many thanks, Jon. Here’s wishing you an exciting and welcoming time this side of the pond.

You can see Jon at the following public events:

October 5 at the Bath Children’s Literature Festival, at an event chaired by Jeff Norton

October 7 at Waterstones Picadilly in London, taking part in a panel event with Louise Rennison and Jim Smith on humour in children’s books

October 9 at Seven Stories in Newcastle

October 11 at The Cheltenham Festival

Jon Scieszka’s website: http://www.jsworldwide.com/
Jon Scieszka on Twitter: @Jon_Scieszka

Display Comments Add a Comment

Over the five years I’ve been writing Playing by the Book I’ve had the chance to meet many authors and illustrators, but one who has a special place on my bookshelves, and indeed in my heart is James Mayhew. I’ve always admired and been inspired by his passion for storytelling across the arts; so much of his work is about opening horizons beyond the pages of a picture book to encourage curiosity and foster delight in art, dance and music.

This year is a very special year for James. It’s hard to believe, but it is 25 years since the publication of his first picture book, Katie’s Picture Show. Katie and her adventures inside paintings (and across landscapes and cityscapes) are known the world over. A new edition of Katie’s Picture Show has been published, to mark its Silver Anniversary but what’s especially interesting to me is that this new edition, whilst still very much Katie’s Picture Show, contains entirely new illustrations and new text.

I’m fascinated by the changes that have been made and so I took the opportunity to talk to James about it. This is a long interview, but I do encourage you to savour it. What James has to say is fascinating and thought-provoking.

Zoe: Ah, hello James! It’s always great to talk with you. I’ll dive in straight away with a big question though: How do you feel your style has changed in 25 years?

James: I don’t believe I’ve ever had a very identifiable style, and although I’ve sometimes worried about this, because it’s obviously important to have an identity that people recognise, I am also of the opinion that it is dishonest to just fabricate a “style” and apply it to my work in a contrived way. Any identity found in my work has grown naturally out of the way I instinctively draw, and make marks, and how I see the world.

It’s the old adage: be true to yourself. I believe strongly in that. An illustrator’s work should be genuine and honest, a reaction to the text, and response to how we see the world around us, or imagine the world we can’t see. You are sharing a little piece of yourself with the world, why dilute that but trying to be predictably commercial or merely generic?

The irony is that the Katie books are all about imitating famous paintings, and so the argument becomes more complicated. In the very first book, I illustrated in a fairly uncomplicated way, and the world of the paintings becomes closer to the world of Katie (ink line and wash). However, in later books, my ability to pastiche and pay homage to these artists has grown. And as my proficiency at capturing the effects and learning from the techniques of these great masters has increased, my own identity as an artist – or my “style” – has become, I think, increasingly hidden. And that is how it should be with these books. They are not bought because of my name but because people want their children to encounter Monet and Botticelli and Van Gogh etc. So it’s right for the books. But for me, as an artist, it can be frustrating to be honest. Sometimes I sit down to draw and think, “Who am I? How do I – James Mayhew – create images?” it’s hard to forget these artists and just be me. What I must say though, is that I have truly approached the studies of these paintings with real love and integrity. It was a never a gimmick, but always done out of a love and respect and admiration for these artists and a real desire to share that passion.

Although I‘m describing a very particular project and situation, I think this quest for an identity is something a great many illustrators concern themselves with. Certainly at Cambridge School of Art where I teach students on the Masters in Children’s Book Illustration, this is the most common discussion.

And so, to answer your question, my style (such as it is) has changed according to my changes as a person, as an observer and draughtsman and recorder of the world around me, over many years of practise and experience, and according to the artists I have studied. And actually as a tutor as well – I learn as much from my students as they learn from me. As my knowledge of techniques and materials has advanced, so my approach has changed. As my knowledge of picture books and publishing has increased, so has my approach to the craft of utilising those 32 pages to maximum benefit. The whole last 25 years feels like one colossal apprenticeship.

Right now I feel I am at a crossroads. There is a whole side to me as an artist or illustrator that isn’t seen and isn’t published. And I feel very strongly, after a quarter of a century of trying to paint like other artists, that it’s time to be me! So I am hoping to put Katie to one side for a while to find time to begin experimenting and playing with different techniques and materials to see what happens.

Zoe: Do you have any examples of this work that you would be willing to share?

James: I suppose a lot of the Noye’s Fludde art is a case in point [Click here to see a slide show of this project, part of the 2013 Cheltenham Music Festival/zt]. I WAS seen, but only for two days! Then it was gone.

Otherwise, I do sometimes paint in oils, and sometimes use lino, for little one-off pieces.

Zoe: What skills/techniques have you developed the most (or adopted anew) in the past 25 years?…I’m really interested in this from an educational point of view – how we are all lifelong learners…

James: Although I studied Illustration, only one short project looked children’s books, which was when I first created a rough dummy book for Katie’s Picture Show. This was in 1985, and I sorely lacked the necessary skills to make an ideal book. I had very little idea, even when I graduated, about the world of children’s picture books. It was very unfashionable in the 1980s to show an interest in that area of illustration. Besides, “teaching” as such was largely absent. We were left very much to our own devices. Despite my degree, I feel largely self-taught.

In 1987, to my never-ending surprise, my book was taken on by Orchard Books, the first publisher to see it. It was THEN the real learning began.

I must say, they were very patient, steering me carefully through difficult waters, although I think the original student dummy changed relatively little. I guess I had good instincts. But I had no knowledge of how colours reproduce, of the best papers to use, I didn’t know how inks fade with time… and I knew nothing about how to create a character, how to show expression through faces and body language… How to pace a story, or use sequential images…

I learned so much on that first book. It was a wonderful, terrifying, tentative time, and I can now look back at the very first edition with amusement and nostalgia. But I also see so many things I am unhappy with.

I suppose the principle learned skills have been practical ones, like drawing children over and over to get a character right, and finding tools, nibs, inks, paints etc that I feel confident about using. Every artist or illustrator will find tools that suit them and tools that don’t. I’m not a pencil person particularly. I fell in love with ink quite early on, but had to develop how I use it over many years. I get quite fixated about nibs (I buy boxes of antique nibs on ebay), and different inks, which I mix, dilute and play around with.

More recent Katie illustrations are very mixed media. I’ve developed quite particular methods, especially for scenes where Katie is inside a painting. To replicate the effects of oil paint, I use emulsion paint, which dries matt, waterproof and is and good surface for many other tools, like pastels or pen and ink and watercolour. The illustrations are built up in many complicated layers over some time.

But there are other less tangible skills too… the ability to let go of ideas, to self edit texts that are too long, to appreciate better the inference of words to children, to ruthlessly recognise a failing illustration and just do it again. And the ultimate ongoing chimera: self-confidence! I am incredibly critical of everything I do – it’s just a bad personality trait (although I see it in a lot of illustrators!). I suppose I will never ever be entirely happy with anything I do, but I hope I might get a little closer as I get older. The learning never stops, and I think you need that to motivate you. If I had all the answers, what would I do tomorrow? Some very successful illustrators do come up with a technique – a “style” – that they feel confident about and they use that all their lives. It’s commercially sensible as they are instantly recognisable. But it’s not for me. This is a journey and I’m always searching, evolving, exploring and experimenting. I feel I still have so much to learn, and I’m glad of it. There are materials and techniques that I would love to explore more, printmaking most especially. I would love to illustrate a picture book in lino cuts!

Zoe: Why does printmaking particularly appeal to you?

James: With printmaking there are always little mistakes, mis-registered things, or unexpected results that really push an artist in new ways.
It’s the opposite of how I work on illustrating a book with ink and wash, where one has so much control and a particular expectation (ie, to produce something in a particular way for publication; there is little room for serendipity).

With lino, for example, I need to think entirely differently. I need to think in terms of shape and layers rather than just colouring in a line drawing. And because it looks so different my expectations of myself change. I find that incredibly liberating. I can surprise myself.

Having said all of this, I rarely have to time to play and print. I’m usually tied up with Katie or Ella Bella, where the established methods mean I have to return to my usual tools…

There are many forms of printmaking – screen printing, lithography – that I’ve never tried. I admire what others achieve with it and I hope I’ll find the time one day.

Zoe: And are there other techniques /materials you’d like to try out?

In general, I am very attracted to traditional methods of all kinds. I’m very keen to explore collage too, having dabbled recently for the Birmingham Festival Sword in the Stone poster and for Noye’s Fludde. I am sneaking a tiny bit of collage into the new Ella Bella book (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream – after Mendelssohn) and I think I will take it further in the future.

Zoe: Talking about being in control, and also about creating spaces (physical, emotional, mental) to try new things… this makes me think of your events where you illustrate live to music – something I think is incredibly special to witness…

James: Yes, in relation to experimenting, the events with music challenge and push me also, of course. Partly because of the speed, but also because I use materials and methods I wouldn’t ever have tried otherwise. The transitory nature of painting live and moving on is absolutely the opposite of the psychology behind making a book, especially a series, where everything is about “getting it right for posterity”. Painting live is about that moment. Nothing is preserved.

Zoe: Perhaps this is a good point to ask about the new text in Katie’s Picture Show. Was as the decision to change the text yours and what was the rationale for doing so?

James: The new edition of Katie’s Picture Show was triggered by the dissatisfaction I always felt for my very first book. Because I learned so much in the process, and other books benefited from that knowledge, I always felt it didn’t match the series so well. When Orchard proposed a new bigger format for the series, I was unhappy to begin with, as I knew those early illustrations would look even more coarse and crude when enlarged. And so I requested to illustrate it again, for no fee, just for the love of it.

In the process, I changed the page turns, in relation to the story, to make better use of the pages in narrative terms. At least, I think that’s what I’ve achieved. I wanted each painting, when coming alive, to be a double page spread. This necessitated some text changes. Also, certain updated information had to be incorporated – changes to painting titles (‘Tropical Storm with a Tiger’ is now ‘Surprised’), spelling or artists names (Kasimir is now Kazimir). Beyond that, as a more experienced storyteller, there were just a few things that didn’t really feel right to me now. Reading the story out loud in schools, there was always a sentence or two I winced at, some turns of phrase that felt a bit dated to my ears now. I am absurdly self-conscious about my writing. So I tried a few slight changes. It was really hard to feel I had “permission” to do this. I agonised. Then Orchard Books emailed me with changed THEY wanted, and I suddenly thought: yes, it’s OK. I can let go. If it is a change for the right reasons, it’s allowed. I wanted the text to be newly minted for another generation.

Zoe: How do you think the role of being an illustrator has change in the past 25 years?

James: When I graduated, children’s book illustration was scorned upon. No-one else on my course was interested in pursuing it. It was considered beneath them. Art schools had no time for it at all. Back in the 1980s everyone wanted to work in advertising where there was big money. My lack of a “style” and my traditional methods and temperament meant I simply wasn’t suited for the advertising world. I wasn’t trendy enough. I loved books, so I was the odd one out really.

Now, there are many courses that focus on children’s book illustration. The MA in Cambridge is the most celebrated and expands year on year, but there are several others. There are more prizes, more publishers, more festivals than ever before. There are dedicated centres (like Seven Stories) and galleries now. I think, despite all the prophecies of doom about the publishing industry, that this is a new golden age. Books are become more beautiful than ever before to justify being in print.

This new age of celebrating children’s book illustration, and the advantages of the internet, provide a great spring board for illustrators today. 25 years ago one simply had to trudge the streets of London and knock on doors. It was time consuming and expensive especially if, like me, you lived in the country. Now with emails and websites and so on, you can easily follow and contact publishers, send work, keep in touch and hopefully get the chance you are hoping for. I think it’s simply a more recognised area of specialisation now and that illustrators are more pro-active. Perhaps the next generation are just a bit more confident. They all seem to go to the Bologna Book Fair to try their luck. Do you know, I’ve never once been to Bologna?

On the other hand, with children’s illustration now a rather fashionable career, it does mean it’s very competitive, and publishers take fewer and fewer risks these days I think. The way books are acquired has changed too. Once upon a time a publisher would fall in love with, and then just publish, an idea. Now it has to go through a long acquisitions process and be approved by committee. It’s much harder in that respect. Publishers are always looking for a commercial artist they can develop as a “brand”. I’m not interest in that side of things, Money doesn’t motivate me in the least. Never has.

As for the role of the illustrator, I think that the fundamental need to serve a text (either your own or someone else’s) should not have changed, but I think the need to promote, market and sell yourself as a brand most certainly has, and for the worse. This is now a big part of the illustrator’s role. Through events, social media and websites we are expected, by publishers, to tell the world how wonderful we are. It’s a development I personally feel very ambivalent about. Of course it’s great to be able to meet your readers – I enjoy events very much. And one needs to tell people an event is taking place. It’s great to share information about materials etc. with colleagues and students online. But the endless self-promotion I see is really quite off putting. I guess I come from an earlier generation, with different ideas about social interaction, decorum, good manners. And the boundaries have shifted. I’m finding it hard to adjust to that.

I think it is also worth mentioning digital media, as that has definitely influenced the general look and style of books being produced and our expectations of illustrators. There is some sensational stuff being produced digitally, and the computer can be a marvellous tool (although I always remind my students that it will never make a silk purse out of a sows ear!).

Publishers now expect that about 80% of books submitted will be created digitally. Certainly at Cambridge School of Art the huge majority of students use digital media at some level. I suppose the danger is that we move away from the sense of hand crafted imagery, and expect a level of perfection (whatever that means) in the work. No blemishes, no happy accidents; we have complete control at our finger tips. I think a lot of digital illustration is outstanding on its own terms. But just sometimes it lacks the personal touch. Then, there is no humanity. It can feel a little cold. The flaws of something made in the real world can be inspiring. In the same way I know many who prefer the stop motion effects of Ray Harryhausen to the CGI of modern cinema, the analogue world, for me, is important, because – to a child – it can be an inspiration. I grew up believing I could make dinosaur movies. It was a tangible possibility. I grew up believing I could paint. But if everything is passed through a computer, it rather takes that away. Certainly, for the Katie series, it’s important for the illustrations to be real paintings, with a real sense of mark making by a real person.

In any case, I enjoy the process. I like to get my hands dirty!

Zoe: If you could step inside any painting (anywhere in the world, not limited to those you’ve included in the Katie books), which one would it be, and why?

James: So many paintings! It is tempting to choose something famous and wonderful, like a Turner painting perhaps. I could experience a shipwreck, a volcano, all sorts of things that way. But actually I will choose a painting I’ve never used in a Katie book, by Samuel Palmer: The Gleaning Field. I love his visionary work, with moons and stars and curious, living breathing trees, and voluptuous hills. This is less rhapsodic, but I find it incredibly comforting: the harvesting, the welcoming light in the window of the cottage. It reassures me, welcomes me, and I have an almost pantheistic response to it: the spirituality of nature, harvest and ritual.

Zoe: Apart from reading the Katie books with our kids, what other top tips do you have for instilling a curiosity and excitement about art in our children?

James: I actually think there is too much emphasis on looking at artists and not enough on being an artist – one of the reasons the final pages of the Katie books, which used to have info on the artists, now invite children to be creative. In schools too much of the curriculum is about copying artists. I know that is ironic, given the nature of the Katie books, and obviously it IS important to look at art. But that is only part of the learning journey, and is really “Art History”. I think to really instill a love of art, children need to be encouraged to have a go and be creative themselves, and I don’t see enough of that happening, in general, at school or in the home.

I am desperately saddened at what I see in many schools. Partly this is to do with the curriculum, and here I must emphasise that there ARE some fabulous teachers and brilliant schools that rise triumphantly above the routine and DO get fantastic results. But in very many schools I see the same old projects repeated. And I must also mention the quite disgraceful lack of materials. Very often I have turned up to run a workshop to be confronted with cheap copy paper, tired old tins of watercolours that look as though they’ve been stuck in the back of a cupboard since about 1967, and useless brushes like startled hedgehogs, messy mixed up pastels. It’s absolutely disgraceful. How children are expected to get good results with such tools is beyond me. It’s a national scandal, quite frankly.

I implore teachers and parents to go into an art shop and buy some decent materials. It needn’t cost the earth. In terms of a school budget it would be a very small investment. For a parent, make it a Christmas or Birthday treat. The best Christmas present I ever got was a box my father made (I still have it) filled with paper, paints, brushes, transfers, stickers, pens, pencils… everything an artist could want. Now THAT’S how to encourage an interest in art!

Beyond that – visit a gallery or museum. Show children what art CAN be. It’s not all just pretty pictures. Modern art can be liberating, or confusing. Or look at really old art – medieval images are often fascinatingly dark and peculiar, full of narrative.

And that’s what works for many children – the story in the picture.

Zoe: Thankyou, James, thank you. What an enthralling insight into Katie’s 25 years, and your wonderful work. Here’s to the next 25 years!

James Mayhew’s website: http://www.jamesmayhew.co.uk/
James Mayhew’s blog: http://www.jamesmayhew.co.uk/blog
James Mayhew on Twitter: @mayhewjames

James has some very special forthcoming events:

“Come to the gallery with Katie”
A 25th anniversary exhibition of the original Katie art, from the first pictures to the latest at the Scottish National Gallery, The Mound, Edinburgh. Opens November 4th. (As yet there is no web link but rest assured, it is taking place!). The exhibition will be free, and there will be linked events taking place in November and December.

“Scheherazade”
Illustrated concert featuring music by Rimsky-Korsakov performed by the Saffron Walden Symphony Orchestra. October 19th @3pm. Part of the Words in Walden festival.
http://saffronhall.com/events/words-in-walden-2/

“Heroes & Villains”
Illustrated concert featuring music by Grieg, Rossini, Copland performed by The de Havilland Philharmonic Orchestra. November9th @ 2pm and 4.30pm. Weston Auditorium, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield: http://www.herts.ac.uk/about-us/arts-and-galleries/whats-on/music

Display Comments Add a Comment