Q&A Picture Book Den
I’m delighted to welcome Mariesa Dulak to the Picture Book Den. As part of Book Trust and World Book Day’s ‘PassThePen’ project, I, as author of last year’s World Book Day ‘You Choose Your Adventure’, have been linked with debut picture book author, Mariesa. We’re celebrating the publication of her picture book ‘There’s a Tiger on the Train’, beautifully illustrated by Rebecca Cobb.
Mariesa, I’ve got so many questions to ask you!
First of all, have you always been a writer, wanting to write books? What was child Mariesa like when it came to her relationship with stories and books?
Thank you for inviting me into The Picture Book Den, Pippa.
I've always loved books and luckily, I was brought up in a household where reading was encouraged and celebrated. One of my earliest memories is scrambling onto my mum’s lap to share a well-worn copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. My dad took my sister and I to Harrogate Central Library every Saturday morning where I slowly munched my way through their children’s collection.
I used to enjoy writing stories too, but I was mostly inspired to write silly poems and songs. Buckingham Palace by A.A.Milne was one of my favourites. I would march around the house to that one and make up my own words.
I’ve read that you did an MA in children’s literature, worked in publishing, and been a bookseller. What did those experiences give you in preparation for becoming a published author? (I was a bookseller myself for some years, and am hugely grateful for the commercial insights it gave me.)
I think one of the best things about bookselling (other than the books of course) is the people. I worked with some lovely booksellers who were knowledgeable and passionate about what they did. As you say, bookselling teaches you about the business side of the book industry and this was a huge help to me when I eventually got into publishing.
Publishing is such a fascinating and creative industry, and I had the opportunity to run marketing campaigns for some inspiring authors and brands (Kes Gray & Jim Field's Oi Dog! was one of my favourites). But working within the industry also showed me the humungous steps that a picture book text has to go through before it reaches a bookshop; secure an agent, find an interested publisher, get to an acquisitions meeting, get through an acquisitions meeting, find the right illustrator, convince the sales team (and rights team) that the text is worth investing time in, convince the booksellers that customers will buy it, secure marketing and PR support and budget and then when it finally reaches a bookshop, make customers aware that your book exists AND convince those customers to actually buy it... For every text , securing an agent is the first step in a very long process and so many of these steps are out of an author's control.
But despite learning the nuts and bolts of the business, I still had a passion for the books themselves which is why I decided to do an MA in Children’s Literature.
The MA was tough (I was fitting it around full-time work) but so rewarding. I learned about the origins and development of children’s literature as well as genres, techniques and themes. And I think it’s around that time that I started to write my own stories. But in those days I didn’t think authors looked like me or came from a background like mine so I didn’t share my writing with anyone.
Your ‘There’s a Tiger on the Train’ story text reads with wonderful rhythm and rhyme … ‘You’ll never guess what happened on our trip down to the sea … A tiger in a top hat came and sat right next to me!’ That easy-to-read rollicking rhymical rhyming text is anything but easy to achieve. How did you manage to keep it going for a whole book?
Thank you, Pippa. I love writing in rhyme, but I have Tessa Strickland at the Golden Egg Academy to thank for showing me how to make it scan and flow. Tessa is a publisher, editor and writer and her GEA course on rhyme was a light bulb moment for me.
In the story, more and more wonderful creatures pile chaotically into the train carriage with their belongings … and Dad remains focussed on his phone … until the tiger gobbles the phone up, releasing Dad to join the fun as the boy gallops on the tiger to the beach, with Dad running after. It’s great fun! But within the fun there’s a clear lesson there for us adults about being absent from children’s lives if we focus on our phones. Do you believe in ‘a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down’ when it comes to stories with a message?
I didn’t set out to write a story with a message. The rhythm of the train and the little boy came first, then the animal passengers and it was only then that I had the mobile phone idea and the rest of the story fell into place.
The mobile phone theme of the story was inspired by my own experience of working full time with a young family and finding it hard to get the balance right. I'm sure readers are rooting for the little boy in the story, but I have a lot of sympathy for the Dad too. He wants to spend time with his son, he’s just distracted by the pressures of modern life.
There’s a Tiger on the Train is about taking the time to connect with those you love. I hope that children reading the book will join in with the rhymes and rhythms, have fun making some new animal friends and enjoy the ride! And I hope that their grown-ups will be reminded to look up from their phones to see what they might be missing in the wonderful world of their own child’s imagination. But I hope parents don’t feel guilty, that really is not my intention. I know that most parents, like I was, are just trying to do their best!
The illustrations in this book are bright and energetic, full of body language we can empathise with, and slightly naughty behaviour we can relate to and enjoy. Are Rebecca’s Cobb’s pictures what you imagined as you wrote?
Rebecca’s illustrations are so much more than I could have imagined. When I wrote the story I thought that perhaps the real world could be in black and white on one side of the page and the imagined world on the page facing it in colour (a bit like John Burningham’s Time to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley). But when I saw Rebecca’s illustrations I knew that the whole thing had to be in glorious full colour. And then when Rebecca did her layouts, she designed the pages so that as the book progresses, the Dad’s real world begins to take up less and less space on the spread and the little boy’s imaginative world takes up more until eventually his world just takes over. I think details like this help to make the book more immersive.
My father and all his family from as far back as we can go came from Yorkshire. He taught me, ‘Never ask somebody if they’re from Yorkshire. If they are they’ll tell you so in the first five minutes. If they aren’t, why humiliate them?’! Do you feel that anything of your home county comes through in your story?
I am proud of my dual heritage and definitely feel that I am half Bajan (from Barbados) and half Yorkshire. Yorkshire people are known for being both warm and plain-speaking. I think the way that the animals rally around the little boy when his Dad is distracted feels like something Yorkshire people might do and I suspect there is Yorkshire tea in the hippo’s tea pot!
And, of course, I’m going to finish with the question, ‘What can we look forward to from you in the coming months and years?’
My next picture book publishes in Spring 2025 with Walker Books. It’s called The Silver Shadow and is based on a story from my Dad’s childhood growing up in Barbados when he found a baby shark in a rock pool.
After that, my next book through Faber and illustrated by Rebecca Cobb is due in 2026 and it’s called The Ice Cream Crocodile.
I’ve also been working on a middle grade novel for ages 7-11 and a graphic novel text. I’m really enjoying working on different age ranges but I think my heart will always belong to picture books.
Wow! I look forward to all those new books. Congratulations, and thank you so much!
If you'd like to find out more about Mariesa, go to her website: mariesadulak.com
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