We are delighted to welcome Mini Grey to the blog to discuss her hugely exciting and ambitious new picture book The Greatest Show On Earth.  Mini is a multi award winning author and illustrator.  Biscuit Boy won the Smarties Book Prize, Traction Man is Here won the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, and The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon won the Kate Greenaway Medal.  You can find out more about Mini by visiting her website.

 

 

 

Please can you introduce us to ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’?  

 

It’s the entire 4.6 billion year story of life on Earth, brought to you in the form of a performance by Rod the Roach and his insect Troupe in a Shoebox Theatre.

[See photo one in picture gallery]

 

What was the reaction from your agent and/or publisher to such an unusual and big book idea?

 

 The idea for the Greatest Show actually began around 10 years ago, and to begin with the book was small and very long! It was a little zigzag book that pulled out into a 4.6 billion year tape measure (which was on the back.) The lovely people at Penguin tried to find a way to publish it, but the zigzag format was difficult, and the little pages didn’t do justice to the story that Rod was trying to tell. For some years it drifted around, in search of the right format. And then I realised it could be a big book, rather than a little one, with space to delve into Earth’s story, and my editors Joe Marriott and Emily Lunn at Puffin decided we could make this happen!

 

 

 

You say the idea for ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ started with a trip to the Oxford Natural History Museum, can you explain how the idea grew?

 

When my son Herbie was about 5 years old, we spent a lot of time hanging out in the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Gazing at the dinosaur skeletons, I realised there were enormous gaps in my knowledge of prehistoric life, and I didn’t even know how old the Earth actually is. Well, it’s 4.6 billions years old – and I just wanted to see what all that time looked like, and hold it in my hands. Later, when Herbie was at primary school, they would do projects on the Ancient Greeks, the Egyptians; how did those timelines fit with the dinosaurs? Could it be possible to tell the whole history of Earth as a story? We humans are uniquely good at absorbing information through stories. Before writing, story was how information was passed down generations. Stories are memorable. Story makes us want to know what happens, makes us pay attention. It seizes our imaginations and curiosity.

[See Photo Two in Picture Gallery]

 

Could this be a first story-scaffold to hang subsequent knowledge about life on Earth upon? I think once you have a mental framework you start to collect new knowledge, and you see things that could be added to your scaffold everywhere – you see more, just in your ordinary everyday world.

[See Photo Three in Picture Gallery]

 

 

 

There’s a wonderful sense of drama and theatricality in the presentation of the book; how did the idea for this develop as the central conceit for the book?

 

I have a mild obsession with toy theatres, and at one point long ago I worked as a theatre designer. Making a picture book is a bit like making a theatre performance: – both in how you make them, but also how you perform them (every reading is a new performance). But also the theatre was the answer to how to present my story – especially the Victorian-style Pollocks toy cardboard theatre. Modelling my book page on a Victorian theatre meant that I could organise the information into areas. The main stage is where you look first, to see at a glance THE MAIN STORY. But then to be able to delve deeper in, if you want to, you can peruse the wings and also see what's going on down at the Tape Measure of Time.

[See Photo Four and Five in Picture Gallery]

 

How much research was involved with the book and did you have any support with that?

 

When I’m making picture books, sometimes I am creating artwork, and have worked out most of the story-telling and the layouts. At these times the listening-and-words part of my brain is at liberty to listen to things – in fact sometimes I really NEED to listen to things to keep on persisting at making pictures. I developed a massive thirst for all online lectures, podcasts, radio broadcasts– about things prehistoric. (In Our time on Radio 4 has brilliant prehistoric broadcasts in its archive!) So I had an overview of what my ‘scenes’ could be. I took a copy of Richard Fortey’s LIFE – An Unauthorised Biography on holiday & scribbled on it. Making the final storyboard – I had to be sure I was telling the right story. But places to find information are infinite, it wouldn’t be possible to read up everything there is to know. I ended up with a shortlist of my go-to books: about 5 books for adults, and also about three go-to children’s illustrated information books. And lots and lots of Wikipedia. At the next stage, when I thought I’d worked out what to say: a few friendly expert fact checker professors helped, and another level of Puffin in-house fact checkers. But you can never get everything right and the science changes, as we see deeper in, as it should.

 

Were there any facts which particularly surprised and stuck with you?

 

[See Photo Six in Picture Gallery]

 

So many! It’s amazing and terrifying that life on Earth has been REALLY close to being snuffed out (the worst: 251 MYA). How the Earth has often been a TERRIBLE place to live in the past – (possibly even trying to get rid of life, you could suspect…) There have been huge volcanic lava outpourings, there have been tremendous freezes, there have been times when the ocean became anoxic and hostile to life. There’s also just how extremely bizarre animals of even not so long ago are: for example, the chalicotherium was an unholy mammal mash-up of a horse and a gorilla – it just looks all wrong! There is the almost accidental way one animal group takes over from another after a mass extinction: mammal-relatives (therapsids) were poised to dominate Earth 270 million years ago, but it was ultimately dinosaurs who kept the mammals small and in the shadows until that fateful asteroid impact 66 million years ago. But also dizzying is the incredible recentness of humans, and the extremely nice climate we happen to find ourselves in (compared to a lot of the past), and that our happy Holocene times (the last 10,000 years), on my tape measure of time, is just the last one-tenth of the last millimetre.

[See Photo Seven in Picture Gallery]

 

It’s a huge and very exciting topic, do you think picture books are a useful means for explaining big and complex ideas and if so what helps with that?

 

The secret power of picture books – is to tell with pictures as well as words, and pictures can tell big and complex ideas. But actually they show, not tell! I hope with very visual pages, picture books can reach ‘reluctant readers’ and also children excited by prehistoric content, who have a thirst for science. I think giving children big numbers, long names, the actual facts – is something they can handle. Picture books can make things visible and tangible.

 

Can you tell us a bit about your technique for creating the book and the media you used?  

 

When I was making the pages, I was building each scene as if it was a theatre set, with actors, scenery and backdrops in layers. I’d work out the layouts with loads of layers of tracing paper cut-outs that I could move around. I’d make artwork for all my actors and scenery pieces separately, and then layer them up in Photoshop in my theatre page framework. The fun challenge was inventing what sort of puppetry Rod & Co might be using; there was quite a thrill in making insects manipulate giant puppet insects (in the Carboniferous era). I was also trying to hide jokes maybe for grown ups: eg in the Cambrian explosion page, Brunhilda (beetle) and Edna (earwig) are trying to work out which way up a creature goes: that creature is Hallucigenia. When it was discovered in the Burgess Shale, it was so odd-looking that palaeontologists couldn’t work out which appendages it walked on, and which were (maybe) for defence, and its name reflected its very mind-bending puzzlingness.

 

[See Photo Eight and Nine in Picture Gallery]

 

 

The tape measure is a clever way to create a time, what was involved in mapping events across such a huge span of time?

 

[See Photo Ten in Picture Gallery]

 

There were massive problems with mapping the entire 4.6 billion years. For the first 4 billion years, there’s no complex animal life. But on my scale of 1 million years to 1 centimetre, this bit would be 40 metres long – right down the street! But very luckily, after the dawning of complex animal life, about 600 million years ago, time becomes more mappable. The International Stratigraphy Chart was invaluable! I discovered a lot of geological time periods last about 50 million years. (There’s usually some sort of extinction event that differentiates the rock layers of different geological periods.) This was incredibly useful and lucky, because my open book was going to be about 50cm wide – so each spread I’d have 50 million years of timeline to play with. I had to be careful not to overload the tape measure – so that meant a lot of thought & research to work out what climate ‘story’ to tell on each spread. With the Tape Measure I was trying to show: the date/time, earth’s changing climate, earth’s changing continents, and snippets of the animals that were around at the time, and introduce the geological eras. The Time Team use cocktail stick animals and teeny road signs to mark out what’s going on.

[See Photo Eleven and Twelve in Picture Gallery]

 

Are there any other ideas for information topics which you’d love to approach?

 

How there are so many amazing animals that didn’t get to appear enough in The Greatest Show – for example: dimetrodon, therapsids, mad palaeocene mammals. What would happen if Rod and the Troupe had a time machine instead of a tape measure?

 

A huge thank you to Mini Grey for a fascinating interview and to Puffin Book for the opportunity.  If you have enjoyed reading about The Greatest Show on Earth, you may also be interested to attend the YLG annual conference this year, Reading the Planet follow the link for more information.

 

Picture Gallery:

One:           The Greatest Show on Earth
Two:           Oxford Natural History Museum
Three:        First Zig-Zag version of The Greatest Show on Earth showing the
                   Timeline.
Four:          A Pollocks Toy Theatre
Five:           This page explains how to read the book
Six:             251 million years ago – the End Permian mass extinction
Seven:       A chalicotherium – from the DK Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs
Eight:         Some of the pieces for making the Age of Fish page
Nine:          Hallucigenia
Ten:           International Chronostratagraphic Chart
Eleven:      Tape Measure research
Twelve:      Tape Measure

 

 

We are delighted to welcome author and illustrator Debi Gliori to the blog to introduce her new picturebook A Cat Called Waverley.  Debi studied illustration at Edinburgh College of Art and has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by Strathclyde University.  Debi has won the Red House Children’s Book Award and has twice been shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.  Debi will be talking more about the highly affecting and important picturebook A Cat Called Waverley at the Youth Libraries Group annual conference this year – Representations of Place: New Lands and New Ways of Looking.

 

Some years ago, I visited a library in Glasgow to lead a storytelling session with an invited primary school class. Before the children arrived, the librarian showed me to the staffroom to drop my bags, and apologised in advance for the smell which, she said, was particularly noticeable in the ladies’ bathroom. She explained that in the colder parts of the year, the library was much prized by the local homeless population. She tilted her head to indicate where a few people sat slumped in forgotten corners of the library, dozing behind newspapers in the quiet warmth of the reading room. The librarian added in a whisper, they sleep here all day, waiting for their laundry to dry. Seeing my puzzled expression, the librarian continued; they wash their underclothes in the bathroom sinks, then drape them across the large Victorian radiators to dry. Imagine.

 

Indeed. Imagine that your life underwent an unforeseen and catastrophic shift. Imagine having to rely on the kindness of strangers for your survival. Imagine being blamed or shamed for allowing such a fate to befall you. Imagine having no agency, no voice, no vote and no sanctuary for when the winter comes. Back then, all those years ago in Glasgow, I chose not to imagine how appalling such a life would be. I had children to raise, books to write and, heavens, a class of seven-year-olds trooping into the library, wrinkling up their noses and loudly complaining about the smell.

 

Many years later, in an older and hopefully more empathetic version of myself, I met the human subject of my book A Cat Called Waverley; a homeless war veteran called Darren Greenfield. In my desire to devise a way to help him off the streets of Edinburgh without turning him into the subject of some well-intentioned children’s writer’s charity, I wove Darren’s life into a fictional tale of a war veteran and his faithful cat, Waverley. I hoped not only to highlight how easy it is to fall into homelessness, but also to begin a conversation with children, to shed light on this grotesque state of affairs that wilfully allows our fellow-humans to live without shelter on the streets of our cities. I also wanted to say to Darren - you matter. Your life story matters. It is wrong and unjust that you live on the streets while we live in houses, and hopefully this book will help ensure that such inequality becomes a thing of the past.

 

For many of us, the main point of contact we have with our homeless fellow-citizens is when we see them asking passing strangers for money on the streets of towns and cities around the UK. Or, when leafing through the broadsheet press, we encounter an advert exhorting us to give generously to one of the charities set up to support homeless people. Sadly, when most of us hear the word ‘homeless’ it doesn’t prompt a surge of empathy or engender more than the faintest wisp of fellow-feeling. Most of us have no direct experience of what it means to have nowhere to call ‘home’.

 

Whether this lack of empathy is a failure of imagination or a deliberate turning away is immaterial; it results in the same thing. We place a few coins in the outstretched hand and walk on by. We take a deep breath and turn the page. We blank out this unpleasant part of the reality of 21stC life. Moreover, we continue to vote for political parties that not only allow our fellow humans to live on the streets, but whose policies appear to actively encourage a moral climate where homelessness is commonplace. We are encouraged to demonise the unfortunate, to categorise people into strivers and shirkers and thus avoid any responsibility for our common weal. It’s an all-too common story, our collective blindness to inequalities and our morally deficient reluctance to step in to rewrite this potentially disastrous story arc.

 

Darren Greenfield’s story ended on the streets of Edinburgh. After several years he slipped through the inadequate net of social provisions we extend to our homeless fellow-humans. The news cycle paid brief attention. One more homeless person died on the streets of a first world city. Next?

 

With the ability to turn the world around me into a story, I’d managed to make over seventy books without once touching on the subject of homelessness. Until Darren. Mainly, I suspect, because I correctly guessed that such a book might not only be difficult to conceive and illustrate, but also that it could be tricky to find a publisher for such a project. I am delighted that not only did A Cat Called Waverley find an empathetic and principled publisher, but it also found the best home imaginable with Otter-Barry Books. Some stories do have a happy ending.

 

A big thank you to Debi Gliori for the blog and to Otter-Barry Books for the opportunity.

 

 

It’s a privilege to be joined on the blog by Nicola Davies, Jackie Morris and Cathy Fisher to talk about their books and, in particular, their stunning illustrations. Later this month, they will be discussing their creative practices and the importance of the natural world as part of two exciting free events, live from Jackie’s kitchen:  ‘Picture Perfect’ and ‘Marking the Page’.

 

Nicola, Jackie and Cathy – welcome and thank you for taking the time to join us on the blog.

 

Your books are absolutely stunning, not only in terms of the illustrations, but also the perceptive use of vocabulary and the additional imagery they conjure in the mind of the reader. In your opinion, what makes picture books so special?

 

Nicola: SOOO many things! Picture books are a unique art form very undervalued and underestimated by most adults. They can speak about the most complex and difficult issues in ways that reach out across barriers of age and culture. The subtle marriage of picture and words communicates through mind and heart and makes a sum much greater than its two parts. We focus so much on literacy that we forget about that other very important kind, visual literacy, and the way information and emotion can be carried pictorially. I would argue very strongly for schools and parents to keep reading picture books to children - and adults - across all ages.

 

Cathy: Picture books are absolutely vital. I’ve been very lucky to illustrate Nicola’s stories as all her stories are fabulous, inspiring, beautifully written, thoughtful and have important messages. Good pictures add layers of visual narrative and meaning to a story and can make it more accessible. Good picture books for young children are the beginning of a love for stories, a growing imagination, a love for reading and appreciation for art - all vital for our well-being.

 

Jackie: It’s the space between the images and words, where the reader lives, with their imagination. That’s what makes the picture book a special country to visit.

 

As a society, we view picture books as being predominantly for young children yet your work seems to challenge this concept. Are picture books just for children or are they as equally important across all generations?

 

Jackie: Picture books are for anyone who wishes to read them. They can deal with challenging subjects, leaving space for conversations to arise around them. In many ways they are art books, or the best of them are anyway.

 

Nicola: Picture books speak across ages. They cut out the noise and get to the heart of what really matters. The Day War Came was used to lobby MPs who had voted against the Dubs Amendment; just as children’s clear sense of fairness sometimes calls adult morality to account, so picture books can offer a clear lens through which we can all see the world as it is and how it could and should be. 

 

Cathy: It’s my belief that picture books should be for all ages. I wish there were more good picture books for young and old. As an illustrator I don’t think pictures for a story should be trivialised or over simplified for young children - ’dumbing down’ an illustration is an insult to their intelligence.

 

Nicola, as an author, many of your books include sensitive and important messages, not just about the natural world but also about emotional experiences. Perfect addresses disability, The Pond focuses on the loss of a loved one, The New Girl depicts exclusion and acceptance, whilst Last awakens readers to the importance of extinction and conservation. Why has it been so important to you to utilise the picture book format to portray these stories?

 

Children are often excluded from conversations about big things, things that affect their lives. Adults exclude them to protect children from the darkness of the world, but also to protect themselves from having to explain and discuss uncomfortable things. I experienced this as a small child and it was incredibly distressing. So, I’m passionate about openness and inclusion for children. I hope what my books do is open up conversations, support adults to talk with their children and support children to understand and to ask questions. All things can be talked about if you have the right context, framework and language - fears, shames, terrors, monsters, mysteries – they are all better brought into the light and looked at, especially if you have a story to hold your hand.

 

When you get the first seed of an idea, how do you nurture and develop it into a finished project? Does your creative process focus entirely on the book and the message you want to convey or do you have external influences on the direction of the piece?

 

Nicola: Sometimes it just comes. I cook it quietly, almost sub consciously, and then the finished text arrives in a very short time; The Promise, Last, The Day War Came, The Pond and Perfect all came that way. But with others like Grow and Lots, where complex science has to be distilled, the process is much longer. The hardest thing with those books is finding the thread, the single most important message that the books must deliver and the idea, image or concept that delivers it. Sometimes that takes weeks and lots of very, very careful word by word construction. As for external influences - well the problem with non-fiction is that everybody has an opinion so the editorial process can be excruciating! 

 

Jackie: All my writing and painting revolves around either trying to tell a story or trying to understand something. It’s my way of investigating things, from the shape of a kingfisher, it’s colour, its flight, to the meaning of death and loss; apart from Can You See a Little Bear? and the Classic Nursery Rhymes book, which are both just fun.

 

Cathy, your illustrations are so full of emotion and understanding for the experiences of the characters. I was particularly drawn to the illustration of anger and grief in The Pond when the young boy ran upstairs screaming at his Dad for dying. Similarly, in Perfect there is the sense of frustration in the imagery when the boy realises the new baby isn’t as he expected. What techniques do you use in your illustrative process to achieve this?

 

I am only interested in illustrating pictures for stories that are beautifully written and inclusive, which open minds and hearts and offer shared conversation for children, adults, parents, and teachers. Books that bring comfort, are supportive, give insight and help readers to express emotions that are often hard to talk about - books that inspire. I pour my own emotions into the pictures. I use colour, layers of tone and texture and the body language of characters in the stories to express emotion and atmosphere.

 

Jackie, The Lost Words was awarded the Kate Greenaway medal in 2019 and was also recognised as the most beautiful book of the year by UK booksellers. It is a collaboration with Robert Macfarlane about the loss of nature words from the lives of children, but has become a much larger discussion on the loss of nature to the whole of society. The large-format and style of the book is exquisite and emphasises not only the spell-like qualities of the poetry inside but also that books like this should be on proud display. What techniques did you use in your illustrative process when developing the book and why do you think it has been so successfully received, not just by the Greenaway judging panel, booksellers and children but by society as a whole?

 

The illustrations are worked in watercolour and gold leaf. Each piece was worked as a soul song to the very best of my ability at the time. A soul song. Why it caught in the minds and imaginations of others I can’t say but it is an honour to have one’s work recognised and our readers have taught us many things and told us many stories about our book. The only thing I can do is to continue trying to do the best that I can. I learn from each painting and hope to improve each time. I love to play with different ideas and materials.

 

The mission of the Carnegie and Greenaway awards is to ‘inspire and empower the next generation to create a better world through books and reading’, something which all of your books do through intricate illustration and powerful, yet accessible narrative. By creating connections to the natural environment in young children, what impact do you hope to have on the future?

 

Nicola: Well of course I want to bring down the patriarchy and bring about a green revolution! What I hope is that my work is quietly but significantly subversive, strengthening children’s innate fascination with nature, giving them a connection that offers them personal solace and perhaps, just perhaps, inspiring them to become advocates for the natural world. I need to do more. I feel I can never do enough. I have a new novel for older children coming out in November that I hope will more directly inspire green action and change through approaching the subject of capitalism’s assaults on the natural world in clear allegory. 

 

Jackie: It’s an influence on the now that I am after, not the future. I hope that children will show their parents the books, spend time in the pages, then go out into the world and realise what we stand to lose if we continue to live the way we do.

 

As well as a shared passion for creating beautiful and profound works of art, you are all very good friends. How does your friendship contribute to the work you produce?

 

Cathy: I met Nicola because she asked me to illustrate Perfect after seeing one of my pictures. I loved her straight away. I met Jackie through Nicola and loved her straight away too. They are incredible women - deeply imaginative, creative, skilled, knowledgeable, thoughtful, supportive, perceptive, brilliant women. Illustrating their stories, working with them, being in a bubble during lockdown, has influenced my artwork and makes me feel very blessed.

 

Nicola: Jackie and Cathy are my first audience for things, nearly always. Cathy’s work directly inspires the words I write for her and Jackie’s clear divergent thinking often sparks new thoughts and ideas. We support each other. Publishing is no bed of roses, especially for women and especially for women who are older, who don’t live in London and who do not have sharp elbows. So, we fight for each other when we are not able to fight for ourselves. And we laugh and walk and talk – it’s wonderful to have such friends, such colleagues, such soul mates.

 

Jackie: We might get more work done if we weren’t such good friends, but it wouldn’t have the heart that it does. The support of friends is what you need in life, in work, always.

 

I know you are all busy working on lots of incredible projects – what can we look forward to next?

 

Nicola: I have a new novel The Song That Sings Us (with Jackie’s cover!) coming out in the Autumn. I’m going to work hard to publicise it because it delivers a message about our need to prioritise nature that I really want people to hear. I’m also starting work on an opera based on The Promise. I have a collection of poems three quarters finished for Petr Horacek – I’m writing to his pictures which is a fabulous way to work. The book is going to be wonderful and will really show off Petr's extraordinary art.

 

Jackie: I’m working on a Book of Birds with Robert Macfarlane and working with Spellsongs on the next album, with a tour coming up in January, all things being well. I have two backlisted titles coming out in October - East of the Sun, West of the Moon and The Wild Swans. I am also still finishing Feather, Leaf Bark & Stone and James (Mayhew) is illustrating Mrs Noah’s Garden. Meanwhile, I have a few illustrations to do for Nicola’s The Song that Sings Us, and a two-book contract with Cathy.

 

Join Nicola, Jackie and Cathy for ‘Picture Perfect’ and ‘Marking the Page’. Presented by Lancaster LitFest in partnership with Graffeg Books, and hosted by Jake Hope, these events will delight those with an interest in illustration, nature and children’s books, whilst being of particular interest to the Kate Greenaway shadowing groups.

 

‘Picture Perfect’ is on Thursday 20 May at 12.30pm, whilst ‘Marking the Page’ is on Friday 21 May at 7.30pm.

 

 

A big thank you to Nicola Davies, Cathy Fisher and Jackie Morris for the interview, to Graffeg for the opportunity and to Laura Jones for conducting this.

 

 

One of the challenges when appraising picturebooks and illustrated texts is exploring the ways that artwork and text interrelate to form the narrative. There are numerous ways this can happen, sometimes they can relate to one another in a way that is very literal and linear, at other points this can be far more playful and imaginative. This can provide a real energy and dynamism for storytelling. This walk through has been written to show one way to approach illustrated books and to better understand some of the mechanics as to how these work. Whilst this might be useful in selecting books for storytimes or for sharing, it is intended more as a guide for how to appraise the form as a whole. What better book to use as a walk through than Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins?

Let’s begin by looking at the cover. On it we see Rosie walking purposefully from the hen-house. Rosie is being followed by a fox whose ears are pricked up and are attentive. The style is influenced by folk-art and draws upon conventions of the rustic and the pastoral with images of fields and fruit-filled trees. The colour palette is limited, its original reproduction used only three inks, but nonetheless creates an earthy and organic atmosphere totally in keeping with the subject of the narrative. The artwork makes strong use of triangles, a technique which helps to draw the eye to particular subjects, here the roof of the hen house and its implied suggestion of domesticity and safety, something Rosie is walking away from as she progresses towards the right-hand edge of the page – progression which is in harmony with the Western tradition of reading from left-to-right.

The title uses alternating orange and green text and features both Rosie the hen and the fox. Already the fox is behind Rosie establishing the pantomime-like dynamic for much of the action that will ensue as the narrative progresses.

The title page itself shows a panorama of the farmyard and surrounding fields with Rosie sitting in the henhouse. It acts as a pictorial or prototype map outlining the areas through which Rosie’s walk will occur.

One of the curious developments which happens as we become more accustomed to reading text is that the conviction and confidence to read images often declines. With that in mind, it’s often helpful to read a picturebook more than once and on the ‘first pass’, to concentrate more on text and the opportunities this provides for artwork to enrich or even contradict this. Rosie’s Walk is comprised of only 32 words and a single sentence relaying factually the nature of the journey Rosie has taken.

The narrative itself, however, is far more complex as a reading that explores both the artwork and the text displays. The opening double-page spread shows Rosie walking away from her hen-house. As readers we are given a point of view that allows us to see the fox crouching beneath the hen-house, its tongue anticipating his desires… Rosie is separated from the fox by the gutter of the page.

Page turns are often crucial in picturebooks, they can signpost humour, anticipation and suspense. Here they are used to great effect here as we see the fox leaping towards Rosie. The triangular construction of the farmhouse, of the fox’s ears and on the prongs of the rake lying on the farmyard floor help to establish the set-up for this mini episode as the text tells us Rosie is walking ‘across the yard’. As we turn the page to the next double-page spread, sure enough logic dictates that the fox collides with the rake which bounces and impacts against the fox’s head. Movement lines show the direction the rake has travelled towards the fox. Movement lines around the fox help to show the reverberation and force of its impact. Rosie meanwhile walks on, tempting the reader to turn the page.

The reader’s point of view on the next double-page spread is similar to that of the frogs who have their front legs raised in warning as they see what Rosie cannot, the fox primed with paws forward, ready to pounce upon Rosie as the text tells us Rosie walks ‘around the pond’. Inevitably the fox’s pounce ends up in the pond where the water splashes and ripples on the pond are substitute motion lines. The peace of the pond has been broken as the frogs are thrown into the air and the bird takes flight in fright from the tree.

What we also notice at this point is that a visual rhythm or pattern is being formed where a set-up is established in one double-page spread and the resolution happens in the next. This is a little like the visual equivalent of a rhyme-scheme in poetry and it repeats itself as the fox makes attempts to capture Rosie and is thwarted while Rosie walks ‘over the haycock’ and ‘past the mill’.

The scheme is broken when Rosie walks ‘through the fence’ we see the fox leaping over the fence. There is an intermediate spread which shows the fox landing in the cart before this collides with the beehives that Rosie is walking under. The final double-page spread shows bees exiting their hives in the foreground and, through use of perspective, chasing fox into the background of the picture.

The final page tells us that Rosie ‘got back in time for dinner’ and we see Rosie re-entering the hen-house, returning to safety and domesticity after the adventurous walk. It is not clear whether Rosie has been oblivious throughout to the advances of the fox, or whether using cunning and guile Rosie has been leading the fox on a merry dance. There is a visual clue on the page with the windmill which suggests it might be the latter. The interpretative space between the text and the artwork of the narrative challenge an active and engaged reading making the form a particularly lively and dynamic one to encounter.


With thanks to Jake Hope, Chair of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal working party and author of newly published Facet book, 'Seeing Sense: visual literacy as a tool for libaries, learning and reader development.'

We are delighted to welcome Cassie Kemp to the Youth Libraries Group blog to discuss the benefits of being a judge for the UK's oldest and most prestigious children's book awards.  Cassie is a librarian with Creative Learning Services in Leicestershire and has just completed her first year as a CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Judge.  Positions on the judging panel are now open to application for East Midlands, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to find out more and to apply visit here.  

 

1.       Books, books, books!
You get to read the best quality books for children and young people out there at the minute. You are able to surround yourself with wonderful books that are loved and have been chosen by fellow librarians. Not only do you get to read all these wonderful books, but you get to look at them in depth.

For those books you have been eagerly anticipating reading it’s so exciting to have a reason to read your favourite author’s new work, but it’s also a great opportunity to explore new books by a wide range of authors and illustrators.

 

2.       Try something new

You will be able to read books you may not have heard about before or would not usually get a chance to read. Whether they are books for a different age group, a new genre or a new author or illustrator; you will be able add to your book knowledge as you devour the books.

There were some books that I know I wouldn’t have chosen to read normally, but that I was pleasantly surprised by, or books that I had absolutely no knowledge or preconceptions of that I was blown away by when I came to read them. We are all guilty of judging a book by its cover or author or genre, but this was a great exercise in showing me that there is a difference between favourite books and unfamiliar books, and that the latter is not a negative, but a positive waiting to be discovered.

 

3.       Humbling

There is nothing quite like realising you are doing all this reading for the good of others- not for yourself directly, or for monetary gain, but for your profession and for young people. It’s a great motivator when you’re struggling to think of sharing the books with other readers and to be able to support the shadowing groups who will be devouring the books you are choosing.

I had a surreal moment during the first judging days when I stepped back and looked at our situation from afar; we were a room of enthusiastic readers from across the UK who were united by our love of reading and our passion for sharing and promoting great books. We were all there because we love what we do and we love to share that with others.

 

4.       Networking Opportunities

You have the opportunity to work alongside like-minded people from across the UK, and share experiences, struggles and ideas whilst being able to hear what’s happening in libraries and authorities elsewhere, and of course- make new friends!

I was able to meet new people from similar working backgrounds and from completely different working backgrounds. We were able to talk about professional support, current challenges we were facing and how we were dealing with them. As well as being able to talk books (non-CKG of course!) and bask in the glow of other bookworms.

 

5.       Personal Development

You will gain confidence and belief in yourself and your abilities during this process. You have been chosen to be a CKG judge for a reason and you’ll learn so much about yourself from this experience.

After the first judging day I came away feeling so confident in myself as a professional person- the same kind of feeling you get when you get given a job you really wanted or get recognition in your workplace for what you do. It was a great feeling of validation- I was able to contribute to discussions with the other judges and feel that my opinions were respected and shared.

 

6.       Excuse to read books

While fitting the reading in with your everyday life and work can be tricky at times, the work you’re doing is reading- and we wouldn’t be CKG judges if we didn’t love reading! As a judge you are be able to read all weekend guilt-free because its for a good cause. It’s like having a reading pass, excusing you from reality for a few months.

And not only that but you get to re-read some of the books too when it comes to the latter stages of the process-- something we don’t often get time to do with our everyday reading books. Revisiting some of the books is a great experience- you’re looking at the books differently now you know more about the story and you discover new things you may have missed the first time round.

 

7.       That winning feeling

Prior to the judging days the judges are not allowed to discuss the books- with anyone! The first time you get to talk about them is on the judging days and you can’t guarantee everyone feels the same as you do about a book. That’s why there are multiple judges from a range of backgrounds and workplaces- so our individual experiences and knowledge can be put together with that of others to gain a consensus of opinion. So when a book you think is great gets the thumbs up from the group, it’s a wonderful feeling. There were some books that I felt so passionately about when it came to the first round of judging that I found myself getting quite emotional and nervous for when it was their turn to be discussed.

 

8.       Professional Recognition

It will look great on your CV! You’ve been chosen to be a part of history, of the oldest, most prestigious book award for children and young people in the UK. As one of my colleagues said to me when I found out I had been chosen “you can’t get a higher accolade than that in our profession!’

It’s a great experience on a personal level for your professional development but it can also look good for your workplace too- whether that’s a boost for your workplace to be able to say their librarian is a judge or for you to use as a reason to ask to attend conferences and other professional events because of your new standing in the professional society.

 

9.       The support of other judges

You will be a judge for two years and the group of judges is made up of a mixture of first and second year judges, allowing the latter to share their knowledge and experience and offer advice to the former. You will also be supported by the CKG working party, the Chair of Judges and previous judges from your region.

As a first year judge this year I was lucky enough to be able to speak regularly to a mentor. This was a great help as I was able to ask all the silly questions I was too nervous to ask the judging group and find out more about what was to come and what was expected of me.

 

10.   Learning about your own reading style

You will learn a lot about yourself as a reader, be able to push yourself out of your comfort zone and build up your reading stamina. The key to managing the reading is working out how you read best- whether that’s at a certain time of day, in short bursts or for large chunks of time.

I learnt that I work best when given a target- saying to myself “I’ll read another 50 pages then I’ll have a break/do the washing up/go to bed” so I didn’t feel overwhelmed or like I was missing out on life/housework/sleep! I found that very simple incentives worked too- like rewarding myself with a chocolate off the Christmas tree when I finished a book!

 

11.   You CAN do it

When the nominations lists are announced and you see the number of the books you have to read in the next few months it can be overwhelming. You may feel like you will never be able to read them all, but you can and you will! The key is to be organised- draw up a timetable or a plan; tick the books off a list as you go or separate the read and not-yet-read books from each other so you can see your progress. The feeling of achievement when you’ve read all those books will be amazing!

I had all my Carnegie books on a bookcase at home and turned the one’s I’d read around so all I could see were those I had yet to read. For the Greenaway I moved books from one shelf to another when I’d read them. Being able to physically see my progress was both comforting and encouraging.

 

12.   New terminology

You’ll probably be looking at books in a completely different way to the way you have before.  Because of this you’ll pick up new terminology and phrases you may have not have heard before.

Before being a judge I was worried that I didn’t know enough about art and artistic style to be able to properly judge the Greenaway, but I found that this wasn’t the case. As a reader familiar with children’s books I knew more than I realised I knew and that perhaps I just didn’t know the technical term for what I was talking about. The CKG Working Party creates a handbook for judges and this includes a glossary of terms which was invaluable at the start of my judging tenure and I learnt a lot from my fellow judges too during the process.

 

13.   The power!

You will know what books have been chosen to be on the longlists, shortlists and then what two books have been chosen as the winners before everyone else! This is somewhat of a double-edged sword as you have the power of knowledge, but you also have huge secrets to keep as well.

I had several experiences before the longlists and shortlists were announced when a particular book was discussed in my presence and I was fighting the urge to shout “I know, it’s great, isn’t it?” or “it’s on the shortlist!”

I also remember early on in the process feeling momentarily upset that I wouldn’t be able to follow the awards as I have done in previous years and get swept away with the anticipation of finding out which books had won or been shortlisted and longlisted this year. But then I realised that I would be in even a better position as a judge- I would be one of the people making that decision, making history and making some fabulous memories along the way. 

 

Thank you to Cassie for sharing her experiences of judging and good luck as you enter your second year!