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Kangaroo Kisses
written by Nandana Dev Sen, illustrated by Pippa Curnick
(Otter-Barry Books, 2016)

 
Children and parents alike may … Continue reading ... →

Mabrook! A World of Muslim Weddings
written by Na’ima B Robert, illustrated by Shirin Adl
(Janetta Otter-Barry … Continue reading ... →

Leigh Turina is Lead Librarian for the IBBY Collection for Young People with Disabilities, which is held at Toronto Public Library in … Continue reading ... →

I am delighted to welcome author Tony Bradman to MWD to celebrate the launch of the 30th Anniversary edition of his much-loved picture book Through My Window. We will be talking about it here as well as a … Continue reading ... →

Through My Window – 30th Anniversary edition
written by Tony Bradman, illustrated by Eileen Browne
(Frances Lincoln, 2016)

Little girl Jo has to stay … Continue reading ... →

Snow – love it or dread it, I think most adults would agree at least that for children there’s something very special about it. And there are also some very special picture books around too. Here, in no particular order, is a small selection of snowy stories set around the … Continue reading ... →

The Snow Leopard
by Jackie Morris
(Frances Lincoln, 2008)

On her fascinating web-page about the process of creating The Snow Leopard (Frances Lincoln, 2008), author and illustrator Jackie Morris says:

A few weeks ago, amidst the deepening refugee crisis from the war in Syria, many people and organisations around the world came together for the Continue reading ... →

This article was a presentation given at the 2012 IBBY Congress in London, first posted here and developed from a PaperTigers.org Personal View, “Caught up in Conflict: Refugee stories about and for young people“.

A bibliography with links to relevant websites is listed by title can be … Continue reading ... →

Let There be Peace: Prayers from Around the World
selected by Jeremy Brooks, illustrated by Jude Daly
(Frances Lincoln, 2009)

 
Continue reading ... →

Hamzat’s Journey: A Refugee Diary
written by Anthony Robinson, illustrated by June Allan
(Frances Lincoln, 2009)

Hamzat’s Journey is the third book in Frances … Continue reading ... →

Mohammed’s Journey: A Refugee Diary

Gervelie’s Journey: A Refugee Diary

written by Anthony Robinson and Annemarie … Continue reading ... →

Azzi In Between
by Sarah Garland
(Frances Lincoln, 2012)

Winner of the Littel Rebels Award 2013

The cover image for Azzi In Between, showing a little girl clutching her teddy bear as she … Continue reading ... →

The Ghosts Who Danced: and Other Spooky Stories from Around the World
retold by Continue reading ... →

Whist putting together my new interview with Mary Hoffman, I revisited my first encounter with her beautiful book The Colour of Home, which I … Continue reading ... →

Dreams of Freedom: In Words and Pictures
edited by Janetta Otter-Barry, designed by Judith Escreet, with a Foreword by Michael Morpurgo
(Amnesty International/Frances Lincoln, 2015)

All royalties donated to Amnesty … Continue reading ... →

Trees are so much a part of our daily lives, whether we take them for granted or find ourselves fighting for their survival: so it is perhaps unsurprising that there are many stories from all over the world that feature trees, woods or forests as a central theme or ‘character’… … Continue reading ... →

What Shall I Make?
written by Nandini Nayar, illustrated by Proiti Roy
(Frances Lincoln, 2009)

Watching his mother cooking in the kitchen becomes a … Continue reading ... →

The Amazing Tree
by John Kilaka
(North-South Books, 2009)

 
In this retelling of an African folktale the animals are hungry and there’s only one tree that has fruit on … Continue reading ... →

Ahmed and the Feather Girl
by Jane Ray
(Janetta Otter-Barry Books, Frances Lincoln, 2010/Paperback 2014)

‘There was once a little orphan boy with big … Continue reading ... →

I Have the Right to Be a Child
written by Alain Serres, illustrated by Continue reading ... →

We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human … Continue reading ... →

The UK’s 2015 Little Rebels Award shortlist has been announced – and it’s an exciting, diverse selection of eight books, featuring both new and well-established book creators.

From the press release by the … Continue reading ... →

One World Together
by Catherine and Laurence Anholt
(Janetta Otter-Barry Books, Frances Lincoln, 2013/paperback 2014)

 
One World Together introduces pre-school children … Continue reading ... →

Excuse the light-heartedness. It's Spring after all. So pop the champagne corks, blow the party hooters… today a picture book story I wrote 15 years ago is being launched at The Illustration Cupboard in London. The timing seems right. Everywhere I look there are giraffes galore – in the windows of Kath Kidson, in the Louis Vuitton ads ...

In my notebook I found the date when my story started taking shape – August 1999. 

So why did my manuscript take 15 years to be published? 

Take heart those of you who have texts in your bottom drawer. Some stories are often just not right in a certain market – the perfect illustrator can’t be found… the economics don’t work. Then in 2004 I saw the magnificent life-size puppet performance of The Tall Horse based on the same story I'd written, produced by the Handspring puppet company in South Africa (it went on to tour in the US and Europe as well). The Handspring is the same company who much later produced the horse in War Horse. Their 5 metre tall giraffe of my story was made of carbon fibre rods, with two puppeteers on stilts inside the body frame, operating the turn of the head, the twitch of a tail or ear and the swaying, graceful gait. I was so mesmerized by the poetic performance that I still have the program and ticket. I can tell you that on Thursday 9th Sept 2004, I sat in seat N1 at the Baxter Theatre, Cape Town.

the giraffe puppet from the production The Tall Horse

Zeraffa Giraffa is essentially a story of a journey of a giraffe who travels from Khartoum with her keeper Atir, down the Nile to Alexandria and across the sea to Marseilles, and finally walks to Paris… not as easy assignment for an illustrator. Who better than Jane Ray? She has captured brilliantly a sense of Africa as well as France in her wide double-paged vistas. We sense both the heat and shimmer of the desert and the contrasting softness of the French countryside without the book losing its fluidity. 

While I was writing Zeraffa Giraffa, I went to the Jardin des Plantes alongside the Seine in Paris to see the building of La Rotonde where the giraffe was housed together with her keeper, Atir. He slept up on a platform close to her face and remained with her for the rest of the 18 years she lived. I tried to imagine the bond that must have existed between them … two exiles from Africa… a boy who had never been further than Khartoum and a giraffe who had lost her savannah ... both alone in this strange, foreign city. What memories did they hold on to?