We are honoured to welcome Laurence Anholt to the blog.  Laurence is the author and illustrator of Small Stories of Great Artists.  He was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal with The Hypnotist and has had books published in over 30 languages.  In this poignant guest blog, Laurence considers the impact personal grief has played on the creation of his own work.

When my daughter died, I thought about libraries. This is how it came about…

In the spring of 2023, life seemed easy for my wife Cathy and me. It would be hard not to find contentment on this Devon hilltop overlooking the sea. In the wildflower meadows below the house, gentle long-horned cattle graze, while our grandchildren run amongst the trees.

After 35 years as a writer and illustrator, a golden opportunity had been presented to me – I received an invitation from the legendary art publisher, Taschen to launch their children’s list. They proposed a super high-quality 336-page anthology called Small Stories of Great Artists, based on my series about great artists and the real children who knew them. What a privilege it was to collaborate with the enthusiastic and efficient editors and designers in London and Cologne.

Together we created fresh layouts, and Taschen employed their expertise in Art publishing to obtain licences for dozens of high-quality reproductions of the artists’ work. I set about creating new illustrations and writing child-friendly biographies of the artists. The book would be translated into several languages and would even have a silky ribbon bookmark, they promised me! Our aim was to create a gorgeous object for a child to handle. Something that would provide a springboard into a lifetime’s love of art.

When things are going well it’s as if we inhabit a bubble in which health and happiness will last forever. It’s easy to forget how perilously thin the skin of a bubble may be.

In her own studio Cathy was lost in her work, putting together a one-woman show of her lovely paintings in Seoul. Our grown-up children were well and happy; and best of all, our daughter Maddy and her new partner came to live just half an hour away.

Maddy was a powerhouse – a fearless standup comedian, an actor, an activist and a Women’s Aid Ambassador. When Covid thwarted her run at the Edinburgh Fringe, Maddy didn’t grumble, she sat down, reimagined the stage show as a book; found an agent; got published by Pan MacMillan.

Now pregnant with her first child, she and her partner managed to scrape together a deposit on a romantic tumble-down chapel, which they set about converting into a family home, just in time for the arrival of their first child.

When our granddaughter was born our happiness seemed complete. I have never met a child quite like her – from the very start that kid had a sense of independence and easy contentment. Basking in love, she slept well, rarely cried and laughed easily. After all, that girl is Maddy’s child.

There was only one small cloud of worry in our bubble world - Maddy began suffering from headaches, which her doctor put down to postnatal anxiety.

And then, late one night and very quietly… the bubble burst.

At home in the chapel, Maddy collapsed in the kitchen. Within an hour we were propelled into a vortex of blaring ambulances, glaring hospital corridors and CT scans. Within a fortnight, Maddy had undergone a traumatic ten-hour operation for a brain tumour. Within months, the long drive to Bristol for radio and chemotherapy had become almost routine. By the time the superb NHS consultant took us to one side and told us, with tears in her eyes that it was all over, we were burnt-out shells.

Declining the offer of a hospice bed, my wife and I brought our daughter to our home above the sea, where we created a different kind of bubble – a sanctuary of tranquillity and love.

The 13^th of September 2023 was a golden, dappled day. Through the open doors and windows, you could hear boundless birdsong, as our beloved 35-year-old daughter died in our arms.

There are no words to describe that kind of pain. In the dark days that followed it was all we could do to put one foot in front of another, let alone organise a traditional funeral. In any case, Maddy wasn’t one for Onward Christian Soldiers. Church services made her giggle.

In a moment of insight, we realised that we had a choice - we could do whatever we pleased. We decided to create something extraordinary to honour that vivacious, rebellious, compassionate, funny and beautiful woman. Huddled together in grief, we began to plan a kind of mini mid-summer festival. We would call it Maddy’s Full Moon Celebration.

The mammoth task of organising the event became a welcome distraction. Our friends rallied around. We erected a huge marquee in our fields. There would be delicious homemade food, a huge firepit and flowers everywhere. Some kind neighbours promised miniature ponies for the children. Twenty or more friendly musicians offered to play for free.

There would be speeches of course, and rashly, I promised to speak. But with the stultifying grief and the sheer effort of organising that event I prevaricated and failed to prepare, beating myself up for letting everyone down. The truth is, I was lost for words.

And then on the morning of the celebration, 22^nd June 2024, something magical happened. I woke before dawn, and discovered an odd phrase had lodged in my mind like an earworm: ‘Life is a Library.’ The words seemed meaningless and bizarre.

I dressed and wandered into the fields where a lone fox returned from a night of villainy. I spotted our resident pair of twin deer – particularly poignant as Maddy is a twin. In the half-light I entered the huge, empty marquee. Walking past bare tables I came to the shrine we had set up beside the stage. There was that magnificent photo of our girl, shining like a flame. And in my mind, I heard that stupid phrase again: ‘Life is a Library.’

The sun rose like a golden ball above the sea. Around midday, more than 200 of Maddy’s friends rocked up from far and wide. Dressed in colourful clothes, they represented every walk of life; every age; every race; every gender; united by love and tears and laughter. It was beautiful. It was sad. It was dappled.

As we assembled in the marquee, I felt anxious. Very shortly it would fall on me to speak and still I had no plan. As I clutched the microphone, I peered through my grief at these wonderful, expectant humans. I spotted Maddy’s angelic daughter, blissfully unaware on the lap of her big cousin. I glanced at the huge photo of Maddy who beamed at me. “Go on dad. Own the marquee!” she seemed to say.

Someone made a recording of my speech, and I swear those words were not mine, and that was not me talking. “Life is a library,” I began. “Everything is on loan. We don't own anything at all.

“When our children were small, I came across the famous words about parenting by Kahlil Gibran: ‘Your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself’. I had always thought of that as a caution against helicopter parenting, or a platitude about letting go - like when a child takes their first steps, when they begin at school, or when they have their first relationship. What I didn't know… what I had never wanted to contemplate, was the true immensity of this concept: we literally cannot hold on to a thing. Everything must be returned in the Library of Life -our youth, our property, and all we love.”

I heard myself expound on the Buddhist teaching of Impermanence - nothing is fixed; nothing lasts except spirit. Nothing lasts except love. Everything is in a state of flux and flow and the more we try to cling on, the more we suffer. Happiness and sorrow are inseparable. Health and sickness are two sides of the same coin. Birth and death are twins. Peace comes from acceptance of the dappled quality of life.

“When Maddy left us, we were faced with the brutal reality of this fact,” I continued, “I would give anything to extend the return date on our precious girl.

“And I should acknowledge that there is nothing unusual or singular about our grief. I fully realise that we are always in the presence of people who are mourning the loss of a loved one. Death is an everyday catastrophe.

“But if nothing lasts, what is the point of it all? Well, I won't lie to you, there were moments in those early days when we felt as if we were stumbling through a dark labyrinth and life seemed utterly futile. All we can do is find a way of accommodating the pain. To make some kind of meaning of it all.

“What I am learning is that I am closer to Maddy when I'm creative; or when I'm in Nature. And here's another thing - whenever you think of Maddy, she's smiling or laughing, am I right? Hard as it is, we must relearn happiness. We're closest to her when we're with laughing with friends. That’s why I feel she's truly with us now.

“So the answer to the question, what's the point of it all if nothing is permanent? is that we are custodians. We are Life’s Librarians. All we can do is take the book home. All we can do is enjoy it as fully as we can and learn from it.

“I learnt so much from Maddy about forgiveness and tolerance and humour, and I continue to learn from her now more than ever. Life is so fleeting and unbelievably precious; all we can do is feel gratitude for what we have, and then return it graciously to the Library of Life.”

The other speeches were better than mine. My god there was some talent in that tent - young actors and comedians who sung, recited poems, told hilarious stories about crazy times with our girl. Her mum, her sister and twin brother spoke tenderly. Her younger cousins celebrated her lustrous hair, her banter, and more than anything, her kindness. Late into the night we sat around a fire as a full Strawberry Moon rose in the starry sky.

And in the coming days, when everyone had gone, and the marquee was dismantled, I went back to my studio to work on this book - Small Stories of Great Artists. Somehow the events of this year made me want to work with more love and care than I ever had before. When the bubble bursts we reevaluate. We appreciate the truly important things in life: family, friends, nature, art, books, and children… especially the children. I hope Small Stories of Great Artists brings joy to many. I’ve dedicated it to my grandchildren, ‘with a starry night of kisses.’

Heartfelt thanks to Laurence Anholt for the blog and to Dannie Price for the opportunity.

We are delighted to welcome Anne Fine, twice-winner of the Carnegie Medal and former Children's Laureate, to the blog to introduce her new book On the Wall and share her thoughts one of its lead characters, Finley.  On the Wall is published by Old Barn Books.

It’s perhaps as well that children don’t come, like sweets, as a Pick-and-Mix choice. We all know what we’d be tempted to choose. But mostly, instead, we end up with a pack of All Sorts.

I have a host of sisters. My mother only had to raise an eyebrow at one for the poor soul to fetch up on the edge of tears. But Mum could scold another till her throat ran dry, and all that sister would do was stubbornly stand, arms folded, till she could welly in with her own tirade and fearlessly argue her case.

So one of most interesting things when writing about the young stems from the fact that they have such astonishingly differing personalities, and such wide emotional ranges. Take Stolly, in Up on Cloud Nine - without a doubt the most eccentric child I’ve ever tried to portray. He makes a raft for his gerbils. He can’t help but tidy the queue at his bus stop. He even starts to build his own personal Wailing Wall. He drives everyone, including his best friend Ian, to distraction.

Yet Stolly’s still in mainstream school, and rolling along nicely. And that’s one of the things I find most fascinating about schools. They take in pretty well everyone, the All Sorts, and by and large everyone learns to fit in and rub along.

There are exceptions, of course. Children like Josh in The Ladder of Fear, (one of the short stories in Blue Moon Day), who has to be taught how to overcome his almost overwhelming anxieties about school. Or unhappy and awkward Tulip, in The Tulip Touch, whose own appalling classroom behaviour and frequent truancy stems from her horribly stressful home background. I’m sure the relentless show-off Titania, in the three comedies about the Mountfield Family (The More the Merrier, Eating Things on Sticks and Trouble in Toadpool) would prove a bit too much for most of those around her in her class.

But I’ve found it hard not to fall halfway in love with the young boy I feature in my new novel, On the Wall. Finley is moving up to secondary school. Those of his classmates who come from the same feeder primary already know him well. But those who don’t, and a goodly number of the staff now set to teach him, find themselves mystified by this unusually quiet and contemplative, but in no way shy, spirit. With his quite extraordinary gift for stillness and his seemingly cast-iron happiness, Finley appears to exist in his own private peaceable kingdom. What on earth makes the boy tick?

And how, by simply sitting unflappably on the wall of the recreation ground, does Finley end up having such a strong effect on both pupils and staff? For somehow, in his presence, nervous Juliet learns how better to deal with her previously relentless and intrusive worries. Overly excitable Akeem can be calmed. Even Miss Fuentes, suddenly bereft of her precious cat, finds his simple closeness on the bench beside her a tremendous comfort. It’s as if Finley’s acceptance of himself spreads outwards, to become an easy acceptance of how others are, giving them a confidence they find both soothing and healing.

Like many authors, I need a lot of time alone and a good deal of silence. Putting a character who has those same needs into a school became a sort of thought experiment. Sarah Maitland observed that most children tend to ‘disappear behind a wall of noise’. I chose to look more deeply into one who chooses to do the opposite. And I found it amusing and enlightening to work out, first, what fellow pupils and teachers would make of him, and how they might interpret his behaviour and even benefit from his presence.

Though there have always been children who come over as ‘different’ in children’s literature, this is a novel that wouldn’t have been written in quite the way it is before the sea-change in teaching whereby the nurture of the individual child began to be taken at least as seriously as the smooth-running education of the herd. And as a result, more and more of those of us who have dealings with young people are fully aware that disquieting numbers of our children now suffer from things like deep anxiety, or loneliness. For these, books can be a lifeline. We do, after all, read partly to know that we are not alone, and reading about someone else’s path out of an emotional mire can offer shafts of light, and ways to go.

A big thank you to Anne Fine for the blog and to Nicky Potter and Old Barn Books for the opportunity.  

With her forthcoming title, Me and Aaron Ramsey, Carnegie Award winning author Manon Steffan Ros conjures a beautifully nuanced slice of Welsh life that celebrates football, family and finding your feet. Alison King caught up with Manon prior to publication to talk about her powerful new story.

As someone who has never engaged with football, I am fascinated by the culture and the community that it encapsulates. You capture both of those things so well in Me and Aaron Ramsey - I was utterly swept up in that world, despite having no real reference points. Where does your own passion for football come from?

I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in football until 2016. The idea of it bored me; I didn't understand why people got such a sense of identity from the bunch of people they happened to support kicking a ball around a field!

Wales qualified for the Euros in 2016, which sparked an interest in football in my eldest son, who then got me interested. I was firmly on the bandwagon, and I'm still on it now! There's such grace and skill and beauty in football, and I can't unsee it. I've been surprised by the sense of belonging one gets from supporting a football team, and the joy of being tribal. I think I'd always thought of the tribalism aspect as a bad thing, but now I can see that it's not about hating the other team and wanting them to lose- It's about loving your own team.

I've been in the Kop in Anfield, underneath the huge banners that the fans pass around, singing You'll Never Walk Alone. There is absolutely nothing like it. It's the opposite to loneliness.

Following the success of Nebo, I imagine it must have been quite difficult to find the story you wanted to tell next. I'm curious as to how you landed on Me and Aaron Ramsey - it's very different, perhaps that was part of the appeal?

Nebo came out in 2018 in Welsh, and so those questions of what to do next were answered some time ago! The first thing I wrote after Nebo was a crime novel- very different, and that was no mistake. I didn’t want to write the same thing again, because I want to respect each novel within its own space and theme. This novel is translated and will be published in the autumn.

Me and Aaron Ramsey made sense to me as the next step, but also just as a novel in its own right. The whole mood and feel and meat of it is so different, but there are similarities thematically. I think they’re both novels about the relationship between a parent and a child, and that tricky bit between childhood and adulthood.

In Me and Aaron Ramsey, the reader spends time with a family that is coming apart at the seams, and although there are some very tense moments peppered throughout the story, the atmosphere created is one of hope, and trust and love. Did you set out to depict it this way or did it happen naturally as the story evolved?

I write a lot about parents separating, and also parents who stay together but are unhappy. When I was younger, there were a lot of middle grade books which tackled this- Paula Danziger, in particular, tackled it masterfully. But I think there’s a danger now that because it’s a more common occurrence in children's lives, we think it maybe isn’t such a big deal, and so we don’t write about it so much. Or we tend to write parents who are together and happy, or are separated - not much in between.

I always try to write with empathy, and am aware that I don’t really want to write goodies and baddies. It’s just not my style, and I don’t really believe that people are like that.

I want to ask you about Sam's brushes with anxiety, which colour his experiences throughout the book. What did you want to achieve by exploring this, and how did you approach shaping Sam's emotional journey?

To me, Sam’s anxiety was a natural progression from having to hear parents arguing often at home. I think that we all experience some level of anxiety- it’s a natural and often useful reaction to worrying situations. I wanted to explore how to deal with the feeling when it does surface, the different coping mechanisms people have. This is admittedly close to home for me- I remember being quite an anxious child, worrying about war and nukes and whether my friends really liked me until very late at night. I came up with ways to stem the worry, and Sam does the same.

in a house

Let’s talk about Mattie - there's a real sense of freedom in her and I found her to be a lot of fun and also unexpected, in terms of the way little sisters are depicted in children's fiction. Where did she spring from and did you enjoy writing her?

I love Mattie! I think that there’s a lot of sibling rivalry and tension in books, and although that is often a reflection of real life, it isn’t always the case. When there is tension between adults hold, siblings can be allies. Siblings can also be friends! I really wanted a cool and happy little girl in this novel, whose brother really loved her and who was more than the stereotypical annoying younger sibling.

I don’t know how much you can say but I’m sure everyone reading would love to know what's on the horizon for you, in terms of writing projects.

What’s on the horizon? Lots I hope! I absolutely love my job and I get antsy when a few days pass where I haven’t written anything. I have a few books coming soon- Feather, is another middle grade novel, and there’s the  crime I mentioned earlier, which is set in my home town of Bethesda. But I’m itching to write something new now, a YA book, but I’m not going to jinx it by telling you about it novel before it’s taken root…

A big thank you to Manon Steffan Ros for the interview, to Alison King for conducting this and to Firefly Press for the opportunity.

Brian Wildsmith (1930-2016) was an acclaimed, award-winning painter and illustrator.  He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art.  In 1962 he won the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration for Brian Wildsmith’s ABC.  In 2023, Oxford University Press, published Paws, Claws, Tails and Roars, a stunning gift book highlighting the breadth of Wildsmith’s art and introduced by former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen. 

A new major exhibition, The World of Brian Wildsmith, is opening in Barnsley Museums and will run from 20 April to 21 September 2024. 

In this interview, we spoke with Simon Wildsmith about his father’s work and Clare and Rebecca provided us with insights into their favourites of their father’s books.

What do you remember about your dad’s technique, and how he produced his art?

Brian’s art supplies:

• ·        Handmade paper that always had a texture to it.
• ·        Windsor and Newton gouache paints for the bulk of the painting in the illustrations.
• ·        Old plates and jam jars for water and to mix his colours on.
• ·        Holbein oil pastels, to create marks and emphasise texture.
• ·        Indian ink.
• ·        Coloured pencils & crayons

Brian sometimes applied very thick, hardly diluted white gouache paint to the paper to create texture, to which he would then apply colour once it was completely dry. Sometimes he would add sand to liquid paper glue to create different textures before adding his colours. He might then use the flat edge of a razor blade to gently scrape off some of that coloured gouache, before adding more, or use kitchen roll to dapple or his fingers to smear. He worked very freely, often saying “there are no rules” and so he would engage in whatever it took to achieve the effect he was after. All these techniques would allow the incredible variety in depth of colour and tone in say, the texture of an animal’s skin or fur, the delicacy of a bird’s feathers, the subtle consistency of foliage, the character of landscape or just the wow factor of his graphics. 

He also enjoyed using collage, painting different colours and patterns on other pieces of paper. When dry he would cut out the shapes he wanted and stick them onto the main illustration when all the base paint was dry.

He used the very best quality sable paintbrushes in a number of different sizes, depending on what he was painting. He would keep them for years, changing their purpose as they wore down and aged.

Brian would draw the main lines of his illustrations with B, 2B or 4B soft pencils, before applying his paints. Other times he just painted the illustration or part of the illustration straight on to the paper.

He always bought the very best quality paint brushes and paints, often in nearby Italy, just 50 miles away.  It was one of his great twice-yearly pleasures, to get away alone to San Remo, where he was a valued customer, not only to a great old-fashioned arts supplier, but also to a restaurant that according to him, served the best Fettuccine with cream and Parmesan sauce he had ever tasted. Brian adored his food ! We were never sure exactly what came first. Had he really run out of ‘Tyrien Rose’ or did he just have to give in to the ‘Call of the Cream ?’

Brian was obviously very influenced by the natural world – was he a keen naturalist himself, do you have a sense of where this interest arose from?

Brian was hugely inspired by the natural world. He wanted to inform his audience about the world around them, and as such studied it in immense detail. If he could paint an animal with all the colours of the rainbow and still have you convinced of its veracity, that is in part because he had studied it so closely, down to its skeletal composition. Thereafter, nature, the natural world and all that mankind has created of great beauty were central to his inspiration.

Our parents, and we as a family, travelled a lot and every outing was an excuse for research - a quick stop at the side of a French country road here, to photograph a donkey by a beautiful 18th century barn, a coffee break there, in an Italian piazza to draw its Renaissance church. Observation and research were central to feeding his art and imagination. Equally, he had a substantial library of reference books covering all manner of subjects, from his beloved Renaissance artists to ornithology or Greek architecture…

Furthermore, regarding the myriad animals that populate his books, they serve as vehicles for communication. Children love animals and have a natural affinity with them which facilitates story-telling.

In many ways, much of Brian’s work feels more prescient now than ever, what do you hope new generations of readers will take from his work?

More prescient indeed! With Professor Noah’s Spaceship, already back in 1980, Brian was sounding the alarm about pollution and the degradation of our eco-systems. But he didn’t like to preach. His work is more suggestive, visually strong, but honouring a child’s natural ability to understand the essence of quite complex paintings in a way that adults often fail to do. He once said, ’I paint what I see with my eyes and feel with my heart.’ From the tiniest of little insects feasting on flowers, to the mightiest of mammals, his art is filled with the joy of all that is best about our world – a world that is rapidly changing but with children that are fundamentally the same as they ever were.

Brian was not concerned with passing trends in art & design, nor in making books about passing societal trends or preoccupations. His number one battle was to inspire kids to believe in the ‘possible’ and to help give them what he called ‘visual literacy,’ as this would reap rewards later in life. He was preoccupied with universal themes that have been the concern of humanity for centuries.

These themes around such things as compassion, kindness, generosity, sharing and the preservation of our planet have indeed become more urgent to assimilate as time goes by.

In the introduction to ‘Paws, Claws, Tails and Roars,’ Michael Rosen  talks about Klimt and Kokoshka do you have a sense of the artists and illustrators who inspired Brian’s approach?

Brian’s first love was for the art of the early Italian Renaissance, before the more academic preoccupations of perspective interfered with that wildly imaginative creativity of artists like Giotto, Duccio, Cimabue… It was in part this connection with, and visits to the fabulous church of Saint Francis in Assisi, that led to his book of the same name in 1995.

His second love was for the later art and architecture of the Renaissance, with Raphael, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Mantegna and Piero della Francesca being among his favourites. All the greats inspired and elevated him - Caravaggio, Leonardo, Goya, El Greco… The list is long! Moving on a few centuries to his own, he also much admired some Picasso, much Giacometti, Henry Moore, Mondrian, Dubuffet, Modigliani, Egon Schiele, Cézanne, David Hockney…

The afore-mentioned travels we embarked upon usually had destinations like Florence’s Uffizi, Milan’s Brera, the Scrovegni chapel in Padua and a multitude of other churches, cathedrals and museums dotted all over southern Europe. Brian was insatiable in his appetite for discovering as much art and architecture as possible and he wanted his children to be exposed to as many ‘miracles’ of creation as possible in a way that had not been possible in his own youth. We were very fortunate indeed.

Can you tell us about some of the process of bringing, ‘Paws, Claws, Tails and Roars’ to fruition?

Paws, Claws, Tails & Roars came about from an idea of Rebecca’s after Brian died in 2016. As an homage to his work and his dedication to OUP, she thought it would be a lovely thing to publish a gift-book with illustrations from his 1960’s trilogy, Birds, Fishes & Wild Animals. Seduced by the idea, and after much discussion about format, design and content, all the illustrations were then digitally remastered by Simon, a task he had previously undertaken to revitalise a number of other titles such as the ABC, Hunter and his Dog, Professor Noah’s Spaceship, The Bible Stories. Debbie Sims was commissioned to write the lovely new text. 

Michael Rosen would have been approached by OUP, knowing that he was a fan of Brian’s work. We were thrilled and delighted that he accepted to write such an insightful and interesting forward. 

Brian won the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration in 1962 for Brian Wildsmith’s ABC – what did this mean to him?

Winning Britain’s most prestigious children’s books award for his very first book must have been a tremendously exciting thing indeed. What a start for an original creator! I say ‘must have been’ because Clare and Rebecca were very young when this happened and Simon and Anna weren’t yet born. I remember reading how he didn’t set out to do something revolutionary. He just wasn’t bound by convention or aware of the constraints. He just painted his subjects the way he wished, which takes us back to his painting with his heart. How clearly that shines in those remarkable illustrations! Thereafter, in later years, he never mentioned it. He had a healthy ego and assurance about his worth mixed with the modesty one meets in the truly great.

Can you tell us about the forthcoming exhibition at Barnsley and what people can expect to see and experience?

The forthcoming Barnsley exhibition means the world to us. We are immensely proud of the whole project that has taken over 2 years to plan and work out. When we talked amongst ourselves about finding a venue to show all this amazing art and illustration of our father’s that had never before been seen by the public, Barnsley just seemed the obvious choice. Aged 19, Brian had escaped a grey, sooty, polluted and poor environment where the exploitation of miners, including his own father, was rife, to emerge, 13 years later, on the international children’s books scene in a rainbow explosion of colour. Barnsley and south Yorkshire have changed beyond all recognition since then and the time is right to take that rainbow back!

Do you have a favourite book by your dad, if so what is this and why?

Rebecca - The Owl and the Woodpecker, 1971.

I can distinctly remember as a young child, watching my father paint so many of the illustrations in this book. I seemed to relate to both of these birds. A very constructive woodpecker, who tapped away at his tree every day, not caring at all that the noise he made was badly affecting the nocturnal owl, who turned up to live in the neighbouring tree and who needed to sleep all day. 

As a young child watching the illustrations evolve, I very often felt like both of them. I was always building things and I was a huge sleeper, falling asleep wherever and whenever I could!

I was fascinated with wildlife and the vibrant colours of the woodpecker grabbed my attention, having never seen a real one. I was also very taken by the woodpecker’s kindness in saving his ‘arch enemy’ at the end of the story. What culminated in making this book my favourite, was the fact that when my father gave me a copy of the newly published book, I opened it, and there on the front-end paper of the copy I still have, I read: 

For darling Rebecca, who inspected every drawing and cleaned my studio - Daddy. Publication Nov 1971. 

Then turning the page to the half title page, there in print I read: 

The Owl and the Woodpecker 

For Rebecca

What more could an eleven-year-old possibly want!

(The Owl and the Woodpecker was commended by the Kate Greenaway committee in 1971.)

Simon - Paws, Claws, Tails & Roars, 2023.

Our father dedicated all his first books to his children, as and when they were born and so the calendar would have it that I got his trilogy of Fishes, Birds and Wild Animals. Having spent countless hours last year diving into every last detail of the illustrations, in order to ready them for this new and important gift-book, I fell in love with them anew. Each painting is wildly fresh, exciting and still so modern and made with such unerring conviction. It is quite simply awe inspiring.

Clare - A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1966.

A Child’s Garden of Verses allowed me to escape into my father’s wildly vivid imagination…take a look, the illustrations are exactly as Brian wished, “images which children would react to with joy and wonder.” That’s precisely what they do to me!

A big thank you to Simon, Clare and Rebecca Wildsmith.  Do consider visiting the exhibition of Brian’s work in Barnsley if you get the chance.

We are delighted to welcome author and illustrator David Barrow to our blog.  David is the winner of the Sebastian Walker Award and his first book Have You Seen Elephant? Was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize.  In this lively, thought-provoking blog, David discusses the art of picture books and introduces his brilliant new book Have You Seen Dinosaur?

I love poring over a picture book, reading and rereading a story, constantly noticing new things. People sometimes think picture books are simple things, easy to write and easy to read. But with a picture book you only have 14 or so spreads to create a whole believable environment, with well-rounded engaging characters. It’s get in and get out. Bang!

Picture book makers use many tips and tricks to cram in unspoken details, to expand the world of the narrative, to create this illusion of a fully formed world in a short space of time. Readers may not notice, but the brain does – and children surely do.

Within the simple stories of a picture book, other more tacit storylines are taking place.

In my first book Have You Seen Elephant? I had no time to introduce my characters, the action needed to start immediately! But I was able to provide somewhat of a backstory through family portraits and photos presented in the background on the front and back endpapers. These give the reader insight into our protagonist and his family, so we may feel some connection to him from the get-go.

In The Liszts, a book by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Júlia Sardà, each family member has their own page and one line of description. But the illustrations wholly elaborate on their characters, giving us a visual description of their psyche that transcends the text.

As a child I was captivated by the books of David McKee and Richard Scarry. So much is happening as we traverse Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town. In David McKee’s Charlotte’s Piggy Bank, there are numerous visual subplots that run alongside the main story. Punks buy shoes, two people fall in love. None of this is important to the reader’s understanding of the tale being told. But their inclusion creates a viable, vibrant world, full of excitement and activity – it’s a world we can believe our characters actually live in.

Picture book makers direct readers’ emotions using colour, texture and composition. In The Hidden House (written by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Angela Barrett), three beautiful dolls are abandoned in a cottage in the woods when their maker passes away. As the house deteriorates, the colours shift from warm browns to cold blues to mirror the despondency of the dolls. Then when they are rediscovered by a new family, the images burst into vivid yellows and pinks and fill the page. These changes are subtle yet exponentially heighten the emotional impact of the story.

The concept of being aware of what is happening around us was a major consideration when I was writing Have You Seen Elephant? The protagonist’s implied obliviousness to the massive elephant in the room perhaps served to reward the reader for noticing the very big elephant.

It was an absurd exaggeration of the idea that you see more if you pay close attention (the dog always knows where to look).

In Have You Seen Dinosaur?, the new adventure for the main characters of child, elephant, and dog, I attempted to take this to the next level. This time, a whole city refuses to acknowledge the giant dinosaur roaming their streets. I guess it’s a metaphor for our inclination to get wrapped up in our own existence and miss what is happening all around us.

When we look at images in picture books it pays to recognise all the minutiae. The more we take notice, the more we get.

So, let’s start looking! Let’s get to meet the inhabitants and dive into the worlds that picture book makers create. Picture book makers love building these universes that exist within a small number of pages. We love providing readers with context, however subtle, to make readers’ many visits more enjoyable. The elephant – and now, the dinosaur – is right there to spot!

And they both love to be noticed.

Image Gallery

Image One: The Lizsts, Júlia Sardà

Image Two: Busy, Busy Town, Richard Scarry

Image Three: Charlotte's Piggy Bank, David McKee

Image Four: The Hidden House, illustrated by Angela Barrett, written by Martin Waddell

A big thank you to David Barrow for the guest blog and to Gecko Press for the opportunity