In our last bog post of the year we are delighted to welcome author and illustrator Phoebe Swan to the blog.  Phoebe has a BA in Illustration from Camberwell College of Art and an MA in Children’s Book Illustration from Cambridge School of Art.  Phoebe’s first book, King Leonard’s Teddy was published by Child’s Play and has been shortlisted for the Little Rebel Awards, the Cogan Biodiversity Award and the Teach Early Years Award.  To find out more about Phoebe, visit her website here.

King Leonard's Teddy was shortlisted for the Little Rebels Award. Can you tell us what is rebellious about the book and what being shortlisted meant for you?

I was so honoured to be recognised by Little Rebels Award because it celebrates books that handle big ideas. As a previous winner of the award Viviane Schwarz said; “Picture books are not just for putting tiny children to sleep, they are also for waking them up!” This is not always an easy thing to do within a limited number of words and pages, whilst also holding the attention and engagement of young kid. The big ideas explored King Leonard’s Teddy are about repairing and reusing, and valuing what we have instead of continuing the cycle of mass consumerism. Being shortlisted was a recognition that I had succeeded in making a story that could not only entertain young children, but also introduce them to these concepts

Can you tell us about how you wrote the story and made the pictures?

I first wrote the story after coming across a ‘Toy Hospital’ while on holiday in Lisbon. I wanted to make a book that tackled the issue of how humans overuse the planet’s finite resources. The attachment and care with which children look after a beloved toy seemed a good way in to talking about how perhaps we should be applying that care to more of the things that we discard so easily. I did a lot of drawing on that trip and I based Leonard’s castle on a drawing of one of the castles of Sintra, a town in the hills just outside Lisbon. In the book, I replaced the hill with the pile of rubbish. As Annie Leonard in The Story of Stuff says; “There is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.” The pile of trash surrounding Leonard’s castle helps us to visualise what the accumulation of all that stuff would look like. Small actions such as repairing an object instead of buying a new one might not seem like they will make much difference to the environmental crisis the world is facing, but the small actions of a lot of people do add up to a big impact, so ultimately the message of the book is a hopeful one.

The pictures were made with a mixture of lino print and digital editing in photoshop. Lino printing involves carving out an image from a soft plastic and printing the block, to achieve multiple colours you need to layer up the prints with each colour. Because there was more detail and colour in this book than I could print by hand, I scanned in lino-print texture and then ‘carved’ out the images in different layers of colour on photoshop.

Who will enjoy reading this book?

It is a picture book that works on different levels. Children from around 18 months and their parents can relate to the universal story of an irreplaceable favourite toy. The main character being a king makes his over-the-top behaviour, like throwing things out the window funnier than if it was a child character, but his despair when his teddy breaks makes him endearing to children who will instinctively understand the significance of the event. Children from around age 3-7 will begin to grasp the environmental message and early years and key stage one teachers will be able to use the story, and the page of ideas and activities at the back, as a starting point for topics on recycling, reusing and repairing. There are also more activities and resources on Child’s Play’s website, http://www.childs-play.com/parent-zone/king_leonard_activities.html and I’m always happy for teachers or librarians to get in touch, I’ve worked as an early years/primary teacher in the past so I have plenty of activities up my sleeve!

What can we expect next from you?

I’m working on a second book with Child’s Play called The Welcome Blanket. Unlike King Leonard which was set in a fantasy world, it is very much inspired by my everyday surroundings and much of it has been drawn from observation in culturally diverse area of London in which I grew up and still live in. It celebrates themes of friendship, cooperation and diversity. You can follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/phoebe.swan/ to look out for updates about that coming soon!

Big thanks to Phoebe Swan for the interview and for so generously sharing her gallery of images, showcasing her work, illustration techniques and books.  We look forward to the publication of The Welcome Blanket.

During Anti-Bullying Week 2020 (16 – 20 November), we are delighted to welcome Helen Harvey to the blog to talk about the power and pervasiveness of words.  Helen’s book Emmy Levels Up published on April 1 2021 and was the winner of the United Agents Prize.  A big welcome and thank you to Helen for discussing such an important and personal topic with us.

I’m Helen Harvey, the author of Emmy Levels Up which will be published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Emmy Levels Up is a book for 8+ readers about a gamer who beats her bullies with the skills she learns from video games.

As a writer and library worker, my life revolves around the power of words – their power to communicate and inform and enthral. The type of bullying I write about in Emmy Levels Up, verbal bullying, also rests on the power of words, how words grant power and take it away.

For me, it was really important to show verbal bullying, without any physical element, because this type of bullying is so common but so hard to understand from the outside. After all, if someone says something mean to you, you can just ignore them, right?

In my experience, no you can’t.

When I was in primary school I was bullied…

No one ever hit me or kicked me or tried to trip me up. There were no physical marks, nothing I could point to and tell a teacher about.

My bullies said my clothes were ugly. They called me names and swore at me. They asked me questions and, whatever answer I gave, they laughed. They did it relentlessly, every day, until I felt like an alien in a human suit, who didn’t belong and would never fit in.

Eventually I told my teacher. I’ve never forgotten what he said…

“Helen, every day I want you to look at yourself in the mirror and say to yourself: I am clever, I am beautiful, I am me.”

I’ve never forgotten his words because they were so useless. My teacher thought he was giving me words of power, but he wasn’t, because all my power had already been stripped away. It didn’t matter whether I thought I was clever or beautiful, all that mattered was what my bullies thought. My teacher had the power to tell my bullies off, to tell them he knew what they were up to and it wasn’t OK. Just with words, he could take some the bullies’ power away and give it back to me. If only he had.

This powerlessness is what I wanted to show in Emmy Levels Up. Emmy treats her bullies’ tactics like levels in a game. She just has to figure out the trick or puzzle, and she’ll beat them. But each time she thinks she’s got it worked out – she just needs to learn their dance routine or change her clothes or use their own insults against them – she finds it doesn’t work. Until eventually she decides there’s nothing she can do. She’s completely powerless.

I wanted to give children going through verbal bullying a way to explain it to someone else: “Look, this book is me, this is why it hurts.” Books have the power to reflect our experiences, and the power to communicate other people’s experiences.

Of course, Emmy finds a way to beat her bullies in the end, and it’s gaming that helps her, after all…

For Emmy, gaming is an escape…

It’s a place where she gets lost in a story, becoming a mighty hero, destined to save the world.

But gaming isn’t just an escape, it’s also a community. Online Emmy is popular and admired for her skills. Like so many people who don’t fit in in real life, her online friends are a lifeline. Ultimately it’s her gaming community that helps Emmy beat her bullies.

The online world is also one of the few places children still get to be independent. This is especially true now that we’re all stuck inside. The online world is a place where young people can be anything they dream of: community leaders, web designers, TV stars, artists and creators, champions.

When I’m not writing, I work in a public library…

…a place which embodies the power of words. The library has always been there when I needed it. I went there to seek the company of books when I was lonely as a teenager, to print job applications when I was unemployed, and to sit somewhere warm when I lived in a freezing rented room.

Before lockdown, I still liked to write in the library on my days off. I like watching the people around me: teenagers eager to get their hands on a new book by their favourite author, couples rushing to print their boarding passes before they leave for their flight, a little girl throwing a strop because she doesn’t want to go home.

A few weeks ago, an elderly patron spent an hour walking around our newly re-opened library, choosing books. When she came to my desk to check them out, she said, “You’ll probably think I’m weird, but this is the happiest hour I’ve spent since we first went into lockdown.”

She didn’t sound weird at all.

Helen Harvey works at her local library. She completed the Bath Spa MA in Writing for Young People with distinction and won the 2017 United Agents Prize. She lives near Cambridge with her lifelong gaming partner and two furry writing companions. Emmy Levels Up is her first book.

Twitter: @HellionHarvey

Emmy Levels Up by Helen Harvey publishes in April 2021

Oxford Children’s | Paperback | 9+ | £6.99 

When the first review came in for The Spots and the Dots, it was prefaced with this sentence: ‘I truly wish every child, school and library could own a copy of this incredible book’ (Rachael Davis). As the wife, daughter and grand-daughter of teachers and as someone who’s loved libraries since my first visit, aged four, that sentence means a lot.

The Spots and the Dots has an unusual format for a picture book, in that it’s a double-cover, topsy-turvy book that tells the same story twice. From one way up, we hear the red Spots’ side of the story: how, for generations, the little Spots have been scared to go over the hill because they were told the Dots would take them away. And from the other way up, we hear the identical tale from the blue Dots’ side of the story.

By literally repeating the same story twice, this book takes the old adage that ‘there are two sides to every story’ and exaggerates it to the extreme. The two identical stories then serve to expose the misconceptions and prejudices that have been passed down from the adults to the children on both sides of the hill. Hopefully, this repetition and the topsy-turvy format help to highlight the dangers of ignorance and prejudice in a fun and child-friendly way, but the origins of this book were far from fun or child-friendly.

Whenever people ask me why I wrote The Spots and the Dots, a series of images flash through my mind’s eye. They’re photos or film footage from news reports and they’re mostly of children. We’ve all seen similar images, I’m sure, so I won’t go into details, other than to say that various different countries, races, ethnicities, religions, conflicts and wars are involved. This real-life violence is represented by the play-fights that take place in the book.

Having said all that, though, it was very important for this book to have a playful touch that young children could engage with. The message, after all, is a simple one - that although we may be different in some ways, we all have much in common at heart (like the love we feel for our children and our instinct to protect them). The challenge arose in how best to convey these themes of difference and similarity to little ones.

The topsy-turvy format was key to making the book and its message accessible to all, I think. And I hope that the bouncy, rhyming text also helps. But it’s Marion’s bright, bold illustrations and hand-lettering that really set the tone of this book. Who knew that little red and blue circular shapes could become such appealing characters and express so much with only their eyes and mouths?! Marion’s legendary hand-lettering has been used to great effect many times before The Spots and the Dots, of course. I think my favourite is her ‘LOVE’ poster for the #standup4humanrights campaign (below).

Ultimately, The Spots and the Dots is an uplifting, hopeful and optimistic book. The littlest Spots and Dots of all, with their fresh eyes and open minds, see things as they really are when they accidentally meet at the top of the hill. Generations of ignorance, distrust, misconceptions, prejudice and fear are overturned in an instant, and everything changes.

The notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’, which are so divisive at the start of the stories, have become obsolete by the end. And the symbolic hill - which might initially be seen as representing barriers between people, whether psychological ones such as fear, or physical barriers such as walls or barbed wire - has now become a shared playground.

Thank you, Youth Libraries Group, for giving me the chance to share our hopes for this book - in essence, that it helps to promote more tolerance, respect and empathy. And thank you, librarians, for being the gatekeepers to all the books that help us see life from perspectives other than our own.

A big thank you to Helen Baugh for this fascinating blog article and for a brilliant book!

We are tremendously excited to welcome Thomas Harding to the blog for an interview.  Thomas is an author and journalist.  He co-funded a television station in Oxford and has worked for many years as an award-winning documentary maker.  Thomas is the author of Hanns and Rudolf, a Sunday Times bestseller and winner of the JQ-Wingate Prize.  His book, The House by the Lake a Costa Biography Award shortlistee has been adapted by him into a truly remarkable picture book showing how homes and lives span generations and the politics of their time.  The book is powerfully illustrated by Britta Teckentrup.  Do take a look at the gallery of images which Thomas has kindly shared with us.

Can you introduce yourself a little please?

As a young boy, I loved pictures books. I still have many of my favourites on my shelves. Later, as a teenager, I spent a short time working in a children’s bookshop, and it was then that I understood the diversity of picture books. When I had my own kids, I adored reading to them every night. Safe to say, I have always wanted to write my own picture book.

I have been a journalist for more than 30 years. I have written for various newspapers including the Guardian, FT, The Times and Washington Post. I have made documentaries and ran a TV station with my wife, Debora.

In 2006, my great uncle Hanns Alexander died. I knew him well, he was the person in the family who carried out pranks, who told us children dirty jokes. I knew that he and his family (including my grandmother Elsie) had fled Nazi Germany in 1936; they were Jewish. At Hanns’ funeral a eulogy was given which reported that he had tracked down and captured the Kommandant of Auschwitz. This shocked me. I had never heard this story before. How was it possible that nobody had told me? This got me going on an 8-year journey to find out the truth and resulted in my first book, Hanns and Rudolf. Ever since, I have worked as a full-time author.


The story of the house by the lake is an extraordinary one, not least because it makes us think about what a home is and means, can you tell us a bit about how you came to write it?

When I was young, my grandmother Elsie — we called her ‘Granny’ — told us about her family’s weekend lake house just outside of Berlin. She called it her ‘soul place’. Granny was a larger-than-life character, thick German accent, shock of white hair, bright red lipstick, a cigarette always on her lip. When she turned 80, she took me and my cousins back to the city of her birth. She showed us her family’s apartment in the city centre. It had been bombed during the war and was now a high-end suitcase store. She took us to the school near the Grunewald Forest where she had learnt to speak English. And then she took us out to the lake house, thirty minutes’ drive out of Berlin and to the West.

When we arrived at the lake house I was struck by how small it was. A one-level wooden structure, perhaps 9m wide and 10m long. But it had a fabulous position, overlooking the Gross Glienicke Lake. A we walked down the sandy path we were met by a tall man with a fluffy hat who asked us what we wanted. Later we would learn his name was Wolfgang Kuhne.

Granny explained that she had lived at the house in the 1920s and 1930s. Suddenly, his mood changed. ‘Come in’, he said, ‘come in!’  We then toured the house, with Herr Kuhne showing off all his improvements and my grandmother pointing out that her parents lived in this bedroom and she in that bedroom. It was a lovely, warm encounter. But it was also deeply emotional. After all, this was the last physical trace of the family in Germany. Granny was clearly pleased, however, that even though the house was no longer hers, someone was living there, taking care of it.

Twenty years later, when I was researching my book Hanns and Rudolf, I heard from a resident in the village that the house was in bad shape. I needed to come take a look. So, I hopped on a plane — easier in those days — and a few hours later was standing in front of the lake house.

The building was now overgrown with bushes and trees. The windows were broken. Inside graffiti covered the walls, the floors were strewn with broken bottles and fragments of furniture. The back bedroom, where Granny’s parents had slept, had been used a rug den. I had that uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, when you see a child fall of a swing.

I went to the local city hall and asked what the plan was for the house. They said they would soon knock it down and then replace with new housing. How could I stop this? I asked. They said I would have to prove the house was culturally and historically important. This is what got me going on my research on the house, the 5 families who had lived there and the history it had seen. Which resulted in my writing the adult non-fiction book The House by the Lake.

At the same time, I started working with the residents of the village and involving members of my family. Together we agreed to save the house. Six years later, we had registered the lake house as national monument (a ‘Denkmal’ in Germany) and raised enough money to repair it back to its former state. The house was stunning! Its walls painted in mustard yellows and aqua blues and forest greens.

A few months after we opened the house to the public, I watched some young children as they walked around. I noticed their fascination with a hole in the wooden walls made by a bullet in 1945 when the Russian and German soldiers had fought house to house. I saw them touch the sunflower wallpaper and look out at in wonder the beautiful lake view. It was then that the question came into my head, could I tell this story for young readers? I was immediately excited. But I had never written a picture book before, I wasn’t sure how to do it.

As it happens, a few weeks later I bumped into Nicola Davies the author of many wonderful picture books. I told her I desperately wanted to write a book for younger readers about the house by the lake, but I wasn’t sure if I could do it. She turned to me and said ‘of course you can!’ and then added ‘just go for it’.

A few days later, I sat down at my desk and started the first draft. After a few more attempts and a few more after that, I sent it off to Walker Books, who to my great delight, said that they would like to publish the book. They then contacted the extraordinary German illustrator Britta Teckentrup, who agreed to join the project. Britta lives in Berlin and we immediately connected. It was the perfect partnership.


What type of research was entailed with the book?

I interviewed people in the village who remembered the house and the history it had witnessed. I spoke with my family of course, collecting letters, photographs, film and stories. I also went to various archives in Germany and the UK. The house itself held its own secrets, the fabric it was made from, the environment it was located in, the impact of history on its walls and floors.


Were you able to make contact with any of the families who have previously lived in the house?

Yes! Some were easier than others.

I spent weeks trying to find someone from the family who leased the land to my family. The Von Wollanks. As a last resort, I looked on Facebook, and found the great-grandson of Otto Von Wollank. He was an influencer in Berlin and his most recent picture was of him with Lady Gaga.

The Meisel family who lived at the house after my family were easier to track down. They still ran the same company ‘Meisel Music’ in Berlin. I met Doris Meisel, the daughter-in-law of Will Meisel, the man who lived at the house after my family. She handed me a plastic bag and said that she wanted me to have it. I thanked her and asked her what was inside. She said it was full of documents proving that her family had stolen the house from my family. ‘It’s important to me that you tell the story,’ she said ‘both the good and the bad.’

The Kuhne family still lives near the house. We met a few times and shared stories. Bernd Kuhne had grown up in the same room that my grandmother had used. I was struck by people and stories take place within the same walls, with the same views out of the window.

The Fuhrmanns also live nearby. When I visited the house with them they were overwhelmed with emotion. This is the strange thing about this small wooden house, it appears to provoke strong love and attachments with those it encounters.  


The picture book is an adaptation of your Costa-shortlisted biography, was it challenging adapting the book into such a short form?

When I started, I thought the biggest hurdle would be reduce a story that takes 120,000 words to tell in the adult version of the book to a few hundred for the picture book. I was wrong. The toughest challenge I realised was to locate the essence of the story. To ask the question: what are the characters’ key emotions and what is their narrative arc? This was more important than facts and dates. In truth, I found this tremendously helpful for my other non-fiction adult writing as well.


The book alludes to some dark points in human history, what was your approach to making these accessible for young readers?

This was the other major concern I had. How do you talk about the Nazis, the Berlin Wall, the Stasi, the bombing of Berlin and other dark events for young children?

Then I realised that children fall in love with places. They are sad when they have to leave them. They make friends with some and are bullied by others. They know what it is like to have something they love taken from them.

Most of all, almost everyone knows what it is like to have a home. Whether it is a tent, a flat, a house or a palace. A home is different from a building. A home is somewhere we make memories. A place we are attached to. Somewhere we leave and come back to. Have family celebrations. A place we retreat to our favorite spot, where we feel safe. Where we feel ‘at home’.

This is why I chose to put the little house by the lake, with its own personality and journey, at the centre of the story. I felt that perhaps that was a way for younger readers to connect.

And I hope the book will encourage young readers to think about what is their favourite spot, what is their ‘soul place’?

There are some very poignant explorations of barriers and borders, what kind of resonance do you feel exist with current geo-politics?

The Berlin Wall was an example of a society locking its citizens in, like a city-wide prison. This was a government trying to stop their people leaving. They were not trying to stop others coming in.

Though this is different from many other walls, the impact is similar. There is an ugly tall structure made by humans dividing one community from another.  Whether it be the Berlin Wall, or the wall along the Mexico/ USA border, or the so-called ‘peace wall’ in Jerusalem or the wall dividing the Catholic and Protestant areas in Belfast.

When I asked the people who lived in the house during the time of the Berlin Wall ‘what it was like?’, they said it was ‘normal’. They got used to it. This despite the Wall being less than 10m from the back door, with its watch towers, search lights, barking dogs, machine guns and ‘death strip’. It is a reminder that we humans can find a way to live in even the darkest of situations. Of course, this comes with a terrible cost, which those I spoke with were quick to explain.


What were your thoughts on Britta Teckentrup's illustrations?

I cried when I first saw the pictures. She has so perfectly captured the characters and the house and the story. The way the colours shift, the tone and movement. Granny would have loved these illustrations!

Can you tell us about how the house by the lake is used now?

The house by the lake has been renovated and tours and activates that take place at the house are managed by a German charity called ‘Alexander Haus’. It operates as a centre for education and reconciliation, welcoming tours from the public, schools and other institutions. We run workshops, training sessions and other similar activities. The house is open, when you are next in Berlin please come visit !


Would you be interested in writing anything else for the children and young people's market?

As it happens, I have written a book for young adults called Future History. I like to say it is a non-fiction history of the next thirty years. It has been published in Germany, will be released soon in France, we are currently looking for an English publisher. I would like to write other picture books. I have a couple of ideas… Let’s wait and see if the stars align…

Image Gallery

Image 1 book cover of The House by the Lake, by Thomas Harding illustrated by Britta Teckentrup

Images 2 and 3 Interior and Exterior of the house, 1927 photos copyright Lotte Jakobi

Photos 4 and 5 Interior and exterior of the house, 2013 photos copyright Thomas Harding

Photos 6, 7 and 8 Interior and Exterior of the house, 2019 photos copyright Andre Wagner

Photo 9 Photograph of Thomas Harding outside Alexander Haus, photo copyright Cristian Jungeblodt

Images 10, 11 and 12 spreads from The House by the Lake by Thomas Harding illustrated by Britta Teckentrup, published by Walker Studios 2020 

Massive thanks to Thomas Harding for so generously sharing his time, images and expertise through this interview.

We are delighted to welcome Polly Dunbar to the blog to talk about her illustration, theatre and working on her new book with Mihael Morpurgo, Owl or Pussycat?

Can you introduce yourself please?

Hello my name is Polly Dunbar, I am a children’s author and illustrator. Not only have I always loved drawing but since being in school plays as a child I have a passion for theatre. it became very apparent as I grew up that I was better at illustrating than I am at acting (I’m a terrible singer and a bit shy) In 2006 my best friend from college and I co-founded a children’s theatre company called Long Nose Puppets.  This was the best thing ever because we got to make all the puppets and to act but all the while hiding in a booth and letting the puppets take the lime light. Being part of a puppet company meant I got my fix of theatre, all the  twinkly magic and being part of a team... life as an illustrator is quite solitary so it was nice to be out in the world one again.

How did  it feel to be working on Edward Lear's Owl and the Pussy Cat which is such an iconic text and has been illustrated by so many?  Were there any challenges with illustrating

such a well known text?

When I was sent Michael’s text to read I bowled over by it. It’s such touching story beautifully written. The book recounts Michael in his first school play, at last I could do a book that included my love of theatre, not only the glory and colour of being on stage but all those other fun bits like making costumes and designing sets. To top it all off the play was of The Owl and Pussycat, my all time favourite poem. I remember not sleeping a wink the night after I first read the story, my head was full of images of what I’d like the book to look like.

The book is set in the past and is based around Michael Morpurgo's childhood, did you have any interaction with Michael or did you do any type of research?

The book is set in late 1940s London. I wanted to the colour palette and the outfits to reflect that era. I had an enormous fun making pictures that offset the grey hues of London in contrast to the popping colours theatrical costumes. I incorporated a lot of collage to the costumes to give the tactile impression that the children had cut them out and tuck them together themselves. I didn’t have any interaction with Michael beforehand, expect he was sent the roughs. He was brilliant at letting me just go ahead with how I imagined it giving me lots of space to take liberties and at the same time offering encouragement. It is such personal story for Michael, I wanted to do it justice and for him to be happy. 

What interested or excited you most about the story?

Not only does this book include my favourite poem and brims with the magic of theatre, the reason I  liked it best of all because it’s a LOVE story. Michael’s words really do express so much of the anguish, excitement and pain of those feelings of first love. That’s what really inspired me, trying to capture those emotions in the drawing. I find once I’ve got the “feeling” of the character right all the rest of the colour and composition tends to fall into place. And vice versa, if the character isn’t spot on I can never get a picture to hang together. I guess drawing is a bit like acting. I have to really feel what the character is feeling to make it look believable and not a caricature.

Do you have any memories of texts being performed in school and, if so, what role did you play?

I remember being in school plays very vividly. My first big part was in Alice in Wonderland, I played the Mad Hatter. I had long blond haired and of course at the time I hoped to play Alice but I have two left feet and can’t sing a note- The Mad Hatter was much the best roll for me, also I got to make my own costume.

Can you talk us through your process for creating illustrations?

The artwork for The Owl or Pussycat is different from my normal illustration. My work is usually very pared-down, not much background all focus on the emotion of the character.  This tale needed lots of busy scenes, the school hall, the audience at the play and the atmosphere of smoggy London at the very end. It was challenge of me to illustrate in this way, especially as I had such clear visions in my mine of the atmospheres I wanted to capture. The process for me was a bit like collage, I drew the characters with a combination of pencil watercolour and collage. I drew the background separately and layered them all together on Photoshop. This way of working gives me a lot of freedom so I can make changes and tweak things as I go along. It also meant many hours sat in front of a computer. Putting all my hand drawn elements together in a none slick and “computery” way. Sometimes the technology can be more of a hindrance than a help and I have to be careful not to lose the essence and directness of my initial sketches.

You've collaborated with some amazing authors, Margaret Mahy, David Almond, Michael Morpurgo, what in your opinion makes the richest opportunities in a story for illustrating?

I’ve been extraordinarily lucky to work with such brilliant writers. A text for me must have an “otherness,”  some sort of magic that sparks the imagination. I love writing that leaves space for the illustrator, doesn’t over describe, lets me do my job with a free reign, hopefully bringing something to the story that wasn’t there before, at the same time I have to leave space for the reader, if they can bring their own imagination to the story that’s when a book really flies.

What is next for you?

My next book is by brilliant young poet Raymond Antrobus, it’s about a young bear coming to terms with being deaf. Again this is a story close to my heart, for very different reasons. I’ve also been working on something completely different a book for adults called Hello, Mum, it tells the story of my two boys early childhood and myself as a mum. It’s full of all the doodles and musing from my sketch book from this chaotic and magical time.

A huge thank you to Polly Dunbar for a brilliant interview and to David Fickling Books for the opportunity.