Ten Really Cool Picture Book Openings and Why They Matter By Natascha Biebow

I bet you are reading this first line thinking where is this blog post going and is it worth my while reading on? 

I know. I’m the kind of person who picks up a book, glances at the back cover and flips right to the opening page. Once I’ve read the opening lines, I can tell right away if I am hooked, whether I want to read on. Because the opening line gives me a really clear idea of the journey that the author is proposing. 

I quickly decide: is this a journey upon which I want to spend my precious time?

For instance, here's an opening I love, from Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer: 

"Before school, Olivia likes to make pancakes for her new

little brother, William, and her old little brother, Ian.

This is a big help to her mother."

Olivia Saves the Circus © Falconer

It sets up right away that Olivia is quite a character –- one that I'd like to spend time with! Also, I am intrigued by the voice which uses phrases like "old little brother". Importantly, the opening sets up that Olivia unwittingly equals trouble and, as a reader, I want to find out what she'll get up to next. (She goes on to do amazing circus acts with cool aplomb).

Editors and agents, who receive hundreds of submissions, are the same -- they have got to love the opening of a book to want to publish it.

But picture book openings  are notoriously difficult to get right. They are so few words for a start . . . Plus how will a story grab so many different people -– children, parents, elusive editors and agents -- at once?!

Importantly, a fantastic opening contains the premise and situation of the whole book. In the classic We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, the opening line states right off the bat: "We're going on a bear hunt". Then, the author invites readers on an adventure that appeals to children and grown-ups alike. 

We're Going on a Bear Hunt ©  Rosen & Oxenbury

Almost immediately, we encounter our first challenge -- long wavy grass. Oooh, we've got to wade through it . . . We want to join in! This opening also sets out the mood, tone and authorial voice. Do we want to go on this adventure? Of course we do -- we want to find out what the bear is like! 

There are three key elements to every good opening: who, what and where?

1. Who? introduces the main character and tells readers who's going on the journey

In Penguin by Polly Dunbar, the book opens with the main character, Ben, receiving a penguin as a present. Why does Ben get a penguin, we wonder? What if this were us? What will happen next? 

Penguin © Dunbar

The opening in The Pig Who Wished by Joyce Dunbar and Selina Young is equally intriguing. Though the phrasing is more traditional  ("Once ..."), it quickly sets up that the main character is a pig with a difference, plus it promises a story with magic!

The Pig Who Wished © Dunbar & Young

2. Where? sets the scene for the story, including the setting and the circumstances of the main action.

In the classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, readers are enticed into the world of the little egg. We know we are in the natural world, full of promise and wonder.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar © Carle

By contrast, the setting in Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd is very domestic, but filled with interesting details. The rhythm of the voice is quickly established and the familiarity of the child's world promises a comforting journey with this narrator.

Goodnight Moon © Wise Brown & Hurd

3. What? sets up the main conflict and motivation of the character (what do they need?) that is going to drive them forwards.

In the first spread of Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt, we meet Daisy and her mum at loggerheads over dinner -- how will they resolve their differences?

Eat Your Peas © Gray & Sharratt

Similarly in the opening lines of Fix It Duck by Jez Alborough, we meet the main character, Duck, who has a pressing problem -- a leak in the roof -- and whose fixing prowess, we later discover, is decidedly dodgy. Readers are immediately drawn into the rhythmical storytelling of this author's voice. 

Fix It Duck © Alborough

Often, authors will employ a few spreads to set up the story, but the really clever openings can do this in just a couple of lines and even on one page. Here are five great ways to grab readers in the opening lines:

1. Give a hint of things to come

Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency © Cowell & Layton

In the first spread of Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton, we meet Emily, Stanley and their friend Matilda. We jump right into an exciting adventure (one of many to come) and are intrigued to find out what will happen next.
 
2. Start in the middle of the action

No Matter What © Gliori

In this opening from No Matter What by Debi Gliori, the reader is thrown right into the middle of a situation -– Small is feeling grumpy. We want to know why he is grumpy and how will it be resolved. More than likely, we have been there ourselves, too, so we can empathise!

3. get readers’ attention so they want to know what’s next

The Tiger Who Came to Tea © Kerr

In The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr, readers are invited into a comfortingly ordinary scenario, but the promise of someone at the door (and the hint in the title) are intriguing enough to get readers to want to read on.


4. allude to familiar situations (we’ve all been there type scenarios)

Mr Bear's Picnic © Gliori

Debi Gliori is a master at capturing domestic situations in a light-hearted and poignant way that appeals to adults and children alike. In Mr Bear's Picnic, the prospect of a sunny day with children is a great opportunity for a picnic. But Mrs Bear, who has two little ones, is determined to catch some extra shut-eye. The role of Mr Bear as the adult leader and the source of humour is set up in just a few lines. 

5. introduce really intriguing characters and situations

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie © Numeroff & Bond

Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond's bestselling classic If You Give a Mouse a Cookie sets up straight away a set of unusual characters in an intrguing situation.

Why would you offer a mouse a cookie and what would happen if you did?


 

Well, the mouse would want a

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie © Numeroff & Bond

glass of milk, which would lead to a whole host of other things and back to a cookie. The circular structure of the story is skillfully crafted and really satisfying, but what really grabs you is the premise.

So, with just a few words (and great illustrations!), picture book authors can create openings that make readers want to read on. But what all these openings do is pique readers' curiosity. If readers are saying 'so what?' then the author has lost them . . . Now, about that blank page staring at you . . . What will its opening lines be?

Natascha Biebow

Author, Editor and Mentor

Blue Elephant Storyshaping is an editing, coaching and mentoring service aimed at empowering writers and illustrators to fine-tune their work pre-submission. Natascha is also the author of Elephants Never Forget and Is This My Nose?, editor of numerous award-winning children’s books, and Regional Advisor (Chair) of SCBWI British Isles. www.blueelephantstoryshaping.com

Ten Little Pirates (or how I nearly threw away a great book deal) by Mike Brownlow

We're delighted to feature author (and sometimes illustrator!) Mike Brownlow as this month's guest blogger. His many picture books include the popular Little Robots series that became a TV series, and in this blog Mike divulges why somebody else has illustrated Ten Little Pirates, and it wasn't all plain sailing...

It came unbidden, as sometimes these things do. Walking with my wife in Trelissick Gardens not far from Falmouth, thinking about nothing in particular, the words “Ten little pirates, sailing out to sea, looking for adventure, happy as can be” popped into my head.

Maybe it was because I was in Cornwall, with all its piratical connections, or maybe because it was a beautiful day and I was gazing out over the sea that the nautical theme occurred to me. Whatever the reason, it might have stayed no more than an opening line, soon forgotten, had I not immediately coupled it to the idea of ten green bottles, and their gradual reduction in number.

So, here we have ten little pirates ready to be bumped off one by one in a series of nautical mishaps, the more dramatic the better. But would this be too gruesome for a picture book text aimed at 3-6 year olds? Well not if a happy ending could be arranged, and I had an idea about that. By the time we’d finished our walk I reckon I had about a third of the book written. I dragged my wife into the National Trust coffee shop, and she patiently waited until I'd put down on paper what was in my head. It felt like a strong idea, but I've grown to be wary of first ideas. I’ve started on texts before now, thinking yay! this is the one! – a terrific idea that will make for a sure-fire best seller, only to realize a little later that maybe that first flush of enthusiasm was misplaced.

But another feeling I've learnt to trust is to make time to develop that germ of an idea, whether the outcome is a good manuscript or a duff one. And do it as quickly as you can manage. I made time the next day and pretty soon I had the first draft of Ten Little Pirates done and dusted. It happened that I was quite busy with other work at the time. I was illustrating a book for America, and was running a bit behind schedule. I had a pretty good idea how I wanted my pirates to look - a bunch of disreputable but lovable rogues, with the odd scar and peg leg thrown in to conform to piratical convention. I doodled about, but the annoying thing was that I couldn't actually get down to roughing out the pictures for the book because of pressure of work.

Yet there was still that nagging feeling - was the idea any good? If you're anything like me, confidence is brittle at best, no matter how many books you've had published. I needed confirmation that my text was on the right track. I needed that reassuring pat on the shoulder. So I sent the manuscript off to my agent without any accompanying sample illustration, nor even a pencil character rough, and went back to my other work. All I wanted was a little note saying, yes, this is good, carry on, or no, I don't think this is going to fly.

In the evenings over the next few days I worked on the look of my pirates, and even did a painting of them hanging from the rigging. I was keen to continue, but the Americans were sending me nagging emails, so it was back to the day job.

Less than two weeks later I received an email from Caroline Walsh, my agent at David Highams. 'Congratulations!' it said, “Orchard Books have made an offer on Ten Little Pirates!” Orchard are better than good. They're a great publisher responsible for producing many lovely books. I was thrilled... until I read the next sentence. “And they have the perfect illustrator for the book.” The 'perfect illustrator' it turned out, wasn't me. Orchard had worked before with a young, relatively new artist called Simon Rickerty. He had produced a book for them, 'Suddenly', and it was doing very well. They'd been looking for another text for him to work on and, in their opinion, this was it.

I'll confess it. I was miffed. I huffed about for a while until I'd collected my thoughts. I made the fateful decision. I emailed Caroline to say thanks but no thanks. I really want to illustrate this one myself. Terribly sorry and everything. Caroline emailed me back to say “Er, are you really sure about that? This is a great deal they're offering.” I had another think. I had, I realized, done most of the hard writing work by this time. Illustrating it would take me at least another three, probably four months of hard graft. I checked up on the upstart Rickerty. Damn. He was very good. Bright, bold, strong shapes. A charming naïvety juxtaposed with graphic sophistication. Was this worth having a hissy fit about? I was being offered the opportunity of a book deal with the prospect of having very little extra work to do. All the rest of the hard slog would be down to Simon.

I recanted. I said yes to the deal. It turned out that my manuscript had landed on the desk of Frances Elks, who had been newly promoted to editor that very week. She has subsequently told me that she was worried at the time because people had warned her it might take weeks before she saw a promising manuscript, and here she was, on the first morning of her first day, with something sitting in front of her that she thought was really good. It had apparently taken the reassurance of one or two of her colleagues before she’d followed her convictions and made the offer, but I'll always be grateful that she did.

Fran very kindly suggested she show me Simon's work as it progressed to see if I had any comments. My old illustrator instincts getting the better of me, I looked over his roughs and actually, yes, I did have one or two thoughts. Shouldn't that giant squid be a bit more terrifying? Shouldn't the pirates be in a bit more of a panic on that other spread? Shouldn't that pirate's hair be a teensiest bit browner? Whether Simon actually saw any of my comments I don't know. If he did, he politely ignored most of them and went his own way. And why not? I always hate it when art directors come back to me with nit-picking amendments. I decided to keep any future comments to a minimum. I needn't have worried. Simon did a beautiful job with my little pirates, taking the ‘Little’ part of the title literally and coming up with ten child-like pirates, whose look seems to chime well with children.

Ten Little Pirates breaks two big rules – it’s written in rhyme and its cover is black. Despite this I'm happy to say that at the time of writing the book is selling really well, with five reprints of the paperback in less than two months. It’s also been short-listed for two literary awards. Orchard are so pleased that they’re making it into a series. The next one out is Ten Little Princesses, in August. There are two more ordered, and I’ve just completed the first of those scripts, which personally, I think is the best one yet. (Dinosaurs since you ask!)

More by accident than design, Ten Little Pirates has turned out to be a great book to read out at school visits. Some books make for a quiet read. Not TLPs. I always get the children to stand up and join in with the actions and the noises that accompany the story, and it seems to work a treat. Having a hall full of children leaping into the air and all crying out “ARRRRR!!! at the top of their voices is very satisfying. It even works with a room full of jolly, middle-aged women as I found out the other week when I gave a talk to a regional branch of a book charity in a library.

Hachette, who own Orchard, have a brilliant publicity department, and Rebecca Hearne who deals with me, has found me lots of spots at various festivals, something I’ve done very little of before. It feels very good indeed to have a publisher’s support like this.

And illustrating? Well it’s fair to say I’ve had a bit of a crisis in confidence with my illustration. I know many illustrators and lots of us periodically reach a stage when the work we’re producing feels tired and dull. (A browse through the picture book section of any bookshop usually brings on this feeling in me!) But after a relatively fallow period last year, I’ve re-evaluated things and have updated my way of working in a way that makes me feel enthusiastic about the future. I’ve been doing some pared down illustrations and it feels more contemporary. ‘Less is more’ is a motto I’ve always admired, but never had the courage to put into practice. Now I feel I’ve tweaked my paintings so that the results look less fussy.

But the real discovery from my decision to hand over the illustrating reins to someone else, is that I haven’t missed illustrating nearly as much as I thought I would. In fact I’ve spent quite a lot more time recently writing other manuscripts – early reader and middle grade books as well as picture book texts – and I’ve found that to be a thrilling and addictive process.

So, am I pleased I decided to let another artist illustrate my text? Very definitely ARRRRRRR!!

Mike has worked as an illustrator in the areas of advertising, packaging, animation, design, and editorial. And possibly a few other areas he can’t recall just now. He began writing and illustrating children’s books in the late 90s, and his second book, ‘Little Robots’ was made into a 65 episode, animated TV series for the BBC. Mike’s website (which needs a jolly good spring clean!) is mikebrownlow.com

There Are Two Types of Picture Book - by Jonathan Allen

It's something that I realised a long time ago but never tried to define. That for me at any rate, children's books, and especially illustrated children's books fall broadly into two camps with two different functions - Funny, and what I shall call, for want of a better word, (though I'm sure one exists and I will think of it the second after I press 'publish') 'Transporting' books. Funny books are made with the purpose of generating laughs, obviously, and 'Transporting' ones are made with the idea of taking you into another place or world for a brief time.

The illustrations have a huge role to play in this of course, and the way the Funny v 'Transporting' thing works in the visual field.

Funny deals in simple 'reduced to the essence' line drawings, in character and stance, details aren't important, as immersion in a created world is not in it's remit. Funny deals with the already familiar. Not necessarily familiar surroundings but familiar situations. Surroundings only ever need to be suggested.

'Transporting' deals in complexity and detail. Detail is important for believability, the more detail (up to a point) the more the possibility of successful immersion in the world created. I put books where the creation of a certain mood is important into this category. Funny doesn't really deal in mood creation.

The interesting thing about this split, to me, is the attitude of the public towards each camp. There is some of the time honoured (and unexamined) respect shown to work that betrays obvious evidence of hard work and 'skill'. But that is to be expected, unfortunately. Putting that aside, it does seem that work that speaks to perhaps a deeper place in their hearts and minds lingers longer in the public imagination than work which 'merely' amuses.

I have always thought that this was a bit sad, as a lifelong fan of Tom and Jerry, and The Beano, and books by people like James Marshall, I feel that they, and other work in the same vein will always be under rated in as far as bestowed 'greatness' goes. Probably because it deals with small, familiar situations and with humour, which is never considered all that 'important', or particularly hard to do. A bit like Picture Books ;-)

The other thing I realised at about the same time was that illustrated children's books that get onto any list of all time greats in the field will be largely from the 'transporting' camp.
'Where The Wild Things Are', 'Winnie The Pooh', 'Peter Rabbit', 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' 'The Snowman'. 'Tim All Alone' etc.

The interesting thing is that I can't as readily name a list of great funny picture books. I tend to think in terms of illustrators rather than in terms of actual titles. Artists such as Quentin Blake, James Marshall, Jon Klaasen, Tony Ross, Colin West, though much loved, would never top any 'best of all time' lists though they may come close. I think this is because once something is laughed at or with, it is perceived as being of lesser value than something 'serious', even if that perception is entirely unconscious.

Dr Suess may be the exception, but head to head with Sendak? There's a contest! ;-)

Throwing Out Old Picture Books by Paeony Lewis

This week it’s the London Book Fair, where many new picture books are unveiled. That’s wonderful. However, I'm in a retrospective mood because I've been moving old books out of the reach of my dog’s hungry jaws (unfortunately, ancient horse glue is yummy). I've even been debating throwing out some old books.
I don't care about these three books:

But I want to keep these three books:

Why?
For me, it’s the memories trapped in old picture books that are important. I think that books are like photographs – we often forget the past until we see photographs or 'important' books. They’re a catalyst for memories.

So why not keep the first three books? Being a bit of a hoarder I suspect I will leave them on the shelf, but I have no emotional attachment to them. They evoke no memories and I feel uncomfortable with the Teddy Bear Picture Book (for obvious reasons). By the way, I've just noticed all three unwanted books include trains, so I can’t have been a big fan of engines!

Instead, I prefer to keep slightly embarrassing books like The Party. Good grief, what’s wrong with me?! Nowadays people mock these ‘Susan and John’ Ladybird books. Ho hum, at the time I adored this book. There were party dresses, cake, games and shiny patent leather shoes (or in my case, shiny plastic party shoes that quickly became too small). Going to a party was EXCITING! I liked looking at the pictures and on many pages I tried writing letters (and failed).

Then there’s My Book of Kittens and Puppies that even my mother disliked. Well, despite another dubious cover, I thought this book from my grandma was wonderful. Where else would I see things like cute dogs and cats getting married? Great!

Yikes, I've just realised I'm disinterested in books that include train engines, yet I want to keep girly books about parties, animals in cute clothes, and a naughty little chick who drives her mummy to distraction (Mother Hen & Mary), but what the chick really wants is to grow into a big hen like Mummy and lay eggs. Sigh. It sounds like I was a real girly girl, but I also loved dinosaurs, playing with my toy garage and cars, and was so excited when my dad let me use an air gun. However, the girl/boy debate is not the aim of this blog.

So what’s the point of this blog, apart from being a blast from the past? I suppose it’s a plea to not throw out your children’s old picture books without asking them what they’d like to keep (and then listening to them!). I believe picture books are an important part of childhood. Some images stay in the memory forever and stories can have a strong emotional resonance.

When I was five I was given British Fairy Tales (Amabel Williams-Ellis) and I've never forgotten the magical dancing beneath the hill (especially when I visited Glastonbury Tor, twenty years later!).

Unfortunately though, some books evoke slightly sadder memories. My heart would break for the lonely donkey in Little Grey Donkey (Alice Lunt/Tibor Gergely). Whilst I enjoyed Little Bear playing with Father Bear in Good Night Little Bear (Patsy Scarry/Richard Scarry), but I always felt sad that my mummy didn't get on with my daddy as well as Father Bear and Mother Bear. So should I throw out these books and forget? I don’t know.

I often hear of adults buying new editions of old books because their parents have thrown away a childhood book that meant a lot to them, but the parents didn't know. Sadly, it’s never the same as the original. I smile when I see my mother's colouring in of her Winnie the Pooh book. A book may be torn and covered in scribbles, or may be of debatable literary worth, but who cares about this if it also cradles important memories? Or am I just a hoarder? What do you think?

Paeony Lewis
www.paeonylewis.com

Can You See Me Now? By Pippa Goodhart

Back in February, the wonderful Imagine! Festival for children ran in the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank.  I was involved in a small way with the part of that festival run by the Inclusive Minds collective.  As the name implies, their session was all about making books and stories accessible to all sorts of children, and making sure that books for children include every sort of child and children from all sorts of backgrounds.  It was a wonderful day of sensory stories, signed poetry, a huge wall on which all could draw themselves (or anything they fancied), some serious adult debate, and a lot of story sharing, drawing, chatter and fun.  And it set me thinking.

 

It is, of course, important to include children of all races, from all sorts of cultural backgrounds, and those with disabilities, naturally within picture books; representing all of us without exclusion.  Nick Sharratt has managed to include a number of children with visual clues to particular conditions in our’ Just Imagine’ book’s busy pictures.

 

But the What About Me? event stated that, ‘the organisers believe that ALL children should be able to see themselves, their lives, their friends and their families represented in the stories and pictures they are given.’  But I wonder if there isn’t a danger that that idea might be taken too literally?  Does that mean that a boy with ginger hair who wears a hearing aid won’t see himself in a picture of a black haired girl wearing a hearing aid?  Do we really want to see ourselves exactly in books?  If so, books will have to be tailor-made for each reader … and I, for one, DON’T want to read about, or see, a story about a plump middle-aged woman with scruffy hair who writes stories for children!  I want other experiences, beyond my own real ones, when I read.  But I DO want to find emotional states in stories that I recognise and want to explore.  It’s at that gut feeling level that I find the point of contact between myself and a story. 

 

I think we’re in danger of forgetting the power of imagination in all this, and I’d suggest that picture books with animal characters are a great way to avoid all those visual mis-match problems whilst getting to the emotional heart of the matter. 

For some reason it’s easier to identify with a fictional character who looks totally unlike us than it is to identify with a character who is human, but different from us in age or sex or appearance or background.  So we all sympathise with lovely elephant Elmer’s insecurity in the happy story about him by David McKee in which patchwork Elmer attempts to blend in with the grey elephants.  A similar story about a child with, for example, a walking frame, who tried to get rid of the walking frame so as to look like the other children, would tend to be a very uncomfortable and unhappy read.  Elmer does a better job than a human character could in making us realise how it might be difficult to be different, and the need for others to consider and do something about that difficulty … in this case by having an Elmer Day once a year when all the elephants paint themselves fancy colours.    

 

There are picture books with animal characters which more obviously tackle a specific disability.  Jeanne Willis and Sarah Fox-Davies’ ‘Mole’s Sunrise’ is a very beautiful book in which blind Mole’s kind friends take him to ‘see’ the sun rise, and describe what they see so as to share that visual experience with Mole.    

Yes, we certainly do need children of all sorts included in picture books, but please don’t forget the richness of what is already out there in stories that on the surface are about animals, but at heart are all about human emotions and experiences.

Have you got other picture book examples you would recommend, featuring examples of anthropomorphic characters whose experiences might chime with disabled or marginalised children? 

 

A writing process described

Moira Butterfield
www.moirabutterfield.com
@moiraworld

A cover from the work in progress described below.

 “I like your story. When I read it, it’s like a movie in my head.”

That was part of a lovely email sent to me by a young US reader this week, and I was delighted with the phrase she used because it struck a chord with me, and made me think about my work process.

I work on books for all ages and in several genres. Whether I’m working on story material, non-fiction or practical make-and-do ideas. I’m doing my best to take my reader on a journey, and to do that I’m trying to imagine what effect the words and images are going to have. If my reader can ‘see a movie’ in their head, I’ve succeeded.

This chimes with something I’ve been working on in the last few weeks, so I thought I’d share the work process on the project, because it’s a particularly lively one. By-the-by, it’s also a peek into a different kind of author commission – intensive, fast and team-led – rather than picture book texts that develop over time without a specific brief. However, there are similarities.

The brief I’m going to explore came from an educational publisher Wayland. They wanted a series for children who are in the very first years of school (and who would therefore still respond to a picture book approach). For the visuals we had to use existing photography from photo-libraries where possible, combined in some way with backgrounds. The subject of the series was to be ‘my feelings’. The feelings were already chosen – When I’m - sad, angry, surprised, happy. The size was set – 210 x 210mm, 24pp. Now it was down to me to think of a way to do it (and do it very fast!).

The first step I took was to get out my sketchbook, and I began to think and to doodle ideas. What would a child think about being angry or being sad? How could words and pictures help them to think about it? How could I create books that were helpful and positive but not moralizing and patronising? How would the books work in a classroom or with a parent?

I didn’t think of all these questions at once. They came to me as I mused and doodled and, crucially, when I started running mini movies in my head imagining children using the books. I guess I started to imagine myself as a child. Yes, that sounds a little weird, and I do occasionally wonder if I am, in fact, crazy when I do this – But then I think most authors must probably feel this way at times. 

I soon realized that I wanted a great deal of fun in the ‘feeling’ books, and I wanted lively imaginative action – such as feeling angry enough to blow up like a volcano, making a face angry enough to scare monsters or feeling angry enough to bellow like an elephant.

Rough sketches and scribbles for 'Angry'

Each book needed to be crafted to create a strong shared experience and give opportunities for role-playing. Above all they needed to be fun. That approach could only work if we combined the photographs with very lively graphics. 

Here's me playing about with ideas for an 'angry' contents page (and repeating myself!).

Soon I was writing, sketching and selecting a range of possible photos, and luckily I found I was working with a fantastic design/illustrator team at Rocket Design in East Anglia. They really ‘got’ my ideas, ran with them and made them work. 

The designers took my text, sketches and photo suggestions and made them dynamic.

After writing an initial draft of the first book I realized that I needed to add more interactivity. I added extra words that children could say, such as ‘pop’ or ‘boom’, that could be integrated into the visuals. I wanted my young readers to really start acting and to have a laugh whilst thinking about themselves! I even added a whole acting spread at the back. 

An 'acting' spread in the process of being designed (the text relates to the rest of the book)

The words needed to be rhythmic so that they were easily and satisfyingly read aloud (perhaps by a teacher to a whole class, or by a child to a reading mentor). They had to get across the meaning, obviously, and also give the designers opportunities for those lively graphics. Of course, the text evolved as it went along, and I went down one or two wrong routes and had to reverse: 

 “Is angry really the right emotion for stubbing a toe? Hmm…Now I come to think of it, probably not. I’d be more likely to blub.”

The whole project sounds a bit complicated when written down, but it was mostly intuitive. However, it only gelled because I made sure I constantly thought of the child who was my reader. It’s the same technique I would use for any age-group or children’s book genre I was working on. It sounds quite intense, and does feel intense. For any genre, I'm putting in maximum effort and thought.

The thinking process would be similar in a picture book, but then one would have the time and space to go in any direction, unfettered. You might make a mood board, perhaps, or simply sit and play with words. You’d be unlikely to send sketches with your story, but perhaps you might do a few privately to help you think about a character. I’d be interested to hear. Do you perhaps run a movie in your head, then change it and follow different paths? And do you feel a bit crazy sometimes? Is it, at times, a very intense experience?

Perhaps I should do another ‘feelings’ book especially for authors: ‘When I’m creating...’! 

 

Cover designs

PS: the books are still being worked on and haven’t gone to press yet. Many thanks to Debbie Foy and Steve White-Thomson for agreeing to let me write about the project.

Tear-jerkers: picture books that make you cry by Malachy Doyle

When I read, I want to care about the characters.  I want to become emotionally involved with them.  I love it when a book makes me laugh out loud.  I also love it when a book makes me cry.

Many picture books make you laugh out loud.  I've just spent a week with my nearly-two year old grandson, Daniel, and we laughed and laughed.  His favourite right now is Ding Dong Gorilla! by a certain Michelle Robinson - it's a scream!

None made him cry, luckily.  But picture books are for two audiences - the prime audience, young children, but also the adult who picks it up in the shop or library, and who then shares it with children.  It's crucial that the book works for both - and works, therefore, on more than one level.

Some books, which children happily accept as one more enjoyable story, somehow have the capacity to reduce adults to quivering wrecks.  I realised this when a very kind reader responded to a previous blog post about my book The Dancing Tiger. 

'Five years and two daughters on and after hundreds of attempts,' she told me, 'I am yet to actually finish the story. My noise twitches when I pick it up, it stings on the opening line and the tears are flooding at ‘But now that I am old and grey...' 
Luckily it hadn't put her off.  'I have discussed this book for hours on end and my sister and I often wonder if you or Steve and Lou (the illustrators) can actually comprehend what you have created. I have ten copies ready to pass to my children and my grandchildren. When my children ask (as they often do), do I believe in magic? I think of your book and gently reassure them that yes I do.'

Isn't that wonderful!  It got me thinking about the picture books that have had a similar effect on me.  I'm not sure if any have been quite so dramatic, but I'd have no trouble naming some that moved me intensely.

Books about death, if they're done right, are inevitably deeply moving: I'm thinking Frog and the Birdsong, by Max Velthuijs.  I'm thinking Badger's Parting Gifts, by Susan Varley.

And then there are books that are so beautifully told and illustrated that you just love them, over and over.  I'm thinking The Mousehole Cat, by Antonia Barber and Nicola Bayley.  I'm thinking Susan Laughs, by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross.  I'm thinking Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson.  And I'm thinking Dogger - always Dogger.  They don't necessarily make me cry, but they move me deeply, every time.

Anyone want to own up to crying at a picture book?  Any recommendations for the tear-jerker list?  Or just ones that move you deeply.  I'd love to read a few more.  (And maybe write a few more...) 


On that subject, I've a picture book coming out later this year (hopefully) called Tadcu's Bobble Hat.  Tadcu means grandfather in Welsh, and that's all I'm saying...