Report on the Talking Pictures event on Tuesday 6th July.
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This issue’s cover illustration is from The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan. Thanks to David Fickling Books for their help with this January cover.
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‘Every book has a private history of its own, both of its conception and its execution.’
Books for Keeps editor Rosemary Stones quoted Brian Alderson at the opening of the Books for Keeps Random House Talking Pictures event on Tuesday 6th July.
Four illustrators took part in the session, each giving an audience of librarians, booksellers and students of children’s illustration insight into that private history of their work. Christopher Wormell named 18th-century wood engraver and ornithologist Thomas Bewick as an early inspiration but also thanked his children for giving him the impetus to write his children’s books. Considering the collaborative nature of creating picture books, another theme of the discussion, he thanked his editors for restraining his tendency to pack his books with monsters terrifying to children.
Meanwhile Mini Grey thanked the creators of the old Hammer horror films for providing her with inspiration, likening Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales to horror films in the process, while raising the thought that the really terrifying part of Jim is not actually being eaten by a lion, but the limits set on Jim’s life.
It was Sue Hendra’s father who made her an illustrator: the author of Barry the Fish with Fingers and the new book Wanda and the Alien said that it was his advice to do something you really like that set her on the path to becoming a picture book author. She also thanked her agent for restarting her career by helping her to find a different style.
Finally Nadia Shireen, whose debut picture book Good Little Wolfcame out on the Jonathan Cape list last month, described the huge importance to her of the advice and suggestions from a peer group of students of illustration: ‘Having someone else take a fresh look at what you are doing is invaluable.’
The evening concluded with a chance for all there to examine the illustrators’ artwork, sketch books and dummies – fascinating evidence of the creative work that precedes a picture book’s publication.
