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This summer both my girls discovered and devoured books by Lou Kuenzler. A specialist in funny books just right for 5-10 year olds, Kuenzler had a hard time writing and reading as a child; she has dyslexia, and is left handed, but was made to learn to write with her right hand. Stories, however, were always part of her life. On the sheep farm where she grew up, she often told stories to her pet ferret. Later on she developed a passion for telling tales in a theatrical setting: Lou was a theatre director, university drama lecturer and workshop leader in communities, schools and colleges before becoming a writer full-time.

Her Shrinking Violet series has been a huge hit with the Mrs Pepperpot lovers I’ve nurtured here at home; Violet is normal child sized who has the unfortunate habit of shrinking unexpectedly resulting in all sorts of problems… and clever solutions.

Lou’s latest series is based around a very clumsy princess’s adventures at a posh princess academy. Given that elegance doesn’t come naturally, Princess Disgrace has a hard time fitting in and has to learn that it’s worth persevering when things don’t work out the first time.

Given my girls’ love for these books I took the opportunity to ask Lou about the books she really loves, her ‘Desert Island Books’ and here’s what she had to say:

“Thank you so much for inviting me to share my “Desert Island” book choices with you, I am actually pretty excited imagining how lovely it would be to have enough peace and quiet to read all these wonderful books again with the waves lapping my toes and no interruptions except a couple of screeching gulls. It was a tough choice but, in the end, I settled on these eight partly for their their sheer story-telling power but, also, for the part each some have played in helping me to become a children’s writer myself.

The Borrowers by Mary Norton.

I often think it was my love of these tiny light-fingered folk living beneath the floorboards of an ordinary house that inspired me to invent my Shrinking Violet character. Suddenly becoming the size of a fish finger, she too is able to share that miniature view of the big wide world. I remember especially enjoying the second book in the series, The Borrowers Afield, madly searching under stones on my parents’ farm, desperately hoping I would find a borrower of my own now that they had left the house and come to live in the country. I never did find one … but I haven’t stopped looking.

The Far Distant Oxus by Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock.

Written in 1937, this is a wild pony adventure set on Exmoor without an interfering adult in sight. The authors were young teenagers when they wrote it (penning alternate chapters and sending a copy of the finished manuscript to their hero, Arthur Ransome. He was so impressed, he took it to his publishers and they agreed to release the book with a glowing introduction by Ransome himself). When I first read the story as a child, I was thrilled by the idea that two young girls could get published. It gave me the confidence to keep going with the stories I was writing myself. In the end, it took me a lot longer than Hull and Whitlock to get published but they definitely gave me my first spark of hope.

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban.

I love picture books and would definitely have to have at least one on my desert island. I have chosen this brilliantly defiant story, hilariously illustrated by Quentin Blake, as it was firm favourite with both my children. I have wonderful memories of us all nearly falling off the bed we were laughing so hard when I read it one night.

Skellig by David Almond.

When I first became really serious about writing for children, I was lucky enough to attend a workshop run by David Almond. He offered firm criticism, fabulous advice and a few calm words of encouragement – enough to keep me going through many false starts, drafts and rewrites on my way to becoming a published author. Skellig is a book which makes the heart sing – not only for the wonderful writing but for its understanding of how subtle and sophisticated the child reader can be.

Room Full of Chocolate by Jane Elson.

Once I was published, I began to run writing workshops myself. Jane was a student of mine at City Lit in London where I teach an evening class in Writing Children’s Books. Like me, she is dyslexic and we instantly connected, understanding each other’s, often rather topsy-turvy, way of seeing the world. From the very first time I heard an early draft of this magical story, I knew it was something special. A funny and emotional page-turner about friendship and a child’s fear of loss … with a brilliant pot-bellied pig as well. What more could anyone want?

The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter.

I love this story and have read it many times since I first discovered it as a teenager. It was the first adult book that made me realise the fascination with myth and fairy tale can last well beyond childhood.

Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear.

I have always loved the sheer side-slitting silliness of these verses. They would certainly bring a smile to my face on any desert island and be sure to spark off some rhyming attempts of my own too.

Up The Line To Death (War poets 1914 -1918), edited by Brian Gardner

I have and reread these poems throughout my life, finding them particularly poignant in this centenary of the outbreak of WW1. If I was allowed to save just one book from the waves, this might be the one – though it would make for strange and thoughtful reading all alone in the middle of sea.”

My thanks to Lou for sharing her selection of books today. I’m going to use this list to introduce some of these books to my two girls – I’m sure they will be keen to try books that mean so much to an author they’ve hugely enjoyed reading.

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Last month Jackie Morris‘ haunting book The Ice Bear was released in a new paperback edition. To celebrate this I asked Jackie to share a little of the background to this bewitching story, to share some the book’s secrets.

If you’ve already got a copy of the book you might want to have it to hand whilst you read what she reveals, so you can go back and look at the images with fresh eyes. And if you haven’t already found a place in your home for this piece of art between two covers, … well perhaps this post ought to come with a warning notice. There’s magic in and on the pages of The Ice Bear. Prepare to be charmed and enchanted.

“The Ice Bear began with an image in my mind’s eye. It was an image of a child, kneeling. Around the child there were bears, so that the child looked like the centre of a daisy and the bears were the petals. My job was to work out how to get the child there, and probably more important, how to get him out again. This is what books are about for me, asking and answering questions, and in the process discovering more questions.

The Ice Bear began with a friend, pregnant with her first child. Something went wrong. The baby stopped moving, at full term. He died. She had to deliver a stillborn child. A tragedy for her and the child and her husband. The way people reacted to this was a shock to me. Quick, rush over it, brush over it, hide it under business, do anything but face the pain. (Not Sophie and Jon. They couldn’t rush over it, hide it, they had to face it.) I wanted to do a book about a lost child, about loosing a child. This was a thread that wove into the book. Though few would know if I didn’t say and the book is dedicated to Rhoderic, and Sophie and Jon and also to Katie and Thomas who were born by the time the book came out.

The Ice Bear began with a wish to do a book about polar bears, and to weave into it transformation and a legend, of the trickster and the shaman.

The Ice Bear began when the flight of a raven began to stitch together ideas with its patterned flight in the Pembrokeshire sky, because all books are like rivers, fed by streams of ideas, coming together.

The book is part of a series of books I have written about animals, each with a cover that is a portrait of the animal, staring out from the book. The covers are strong, almost iconic, and the books are often given shelf space so that the whole cover is seen, rather than being placed spine out on a shelf. I am told by bookshops who put the in the window that they work like a charm to bring people in to the shop, and one shop in Edinburgh said that people often missed their bus as they crossed the road to get a better look at the Snow Leopard when that was in the window. There’s something about eyes looking straight at you that still holds a primitive magic over the wild parts of the human consciousness. When I paint an animal in this way I am not searching for the humanity in the animal. I am searching for the soul, the spirit of the creature.

Having ‘begun’ with an image the story then builds into a balance of words and images. Picture books are meant to be read aloud. The language needs to taste good in the ear, to look right where it sits on the page. A picture book is like a theatre, each page a stage set for that part of the story and in designing each page I often include parts of the stories that are only in the pictures. Once open I try to keep the words inside the pictures. I want the book to become a world where the pictures and the words tell the story. The composition is thought out right to the corners and often the corners and edges are where the main focus of the story is. (You can see this best in the picture where the child finds his mother bear. The image dominated the page but in the top right hand corner there is the figure of the father, charging in).

I paint on smooth paper, arches hot pressed, beginning with pale washes and then building and building with layers and then smaller details. The paints that I use are Winsor and Newton Artist Quality watercolours, usually tubes, and I use ceramic palettes. I know these colours quite well now after 25 years of working with them. I know when to run wet into wet and how much water to use. Now I use sable brushes. They carry the paint so well and a brush like a series 7, no. 4 will allow a wide wash but also can pull the finest line when handled right. And in the same way that writing is like finding the answers to a series of questions, so too is painting. I am constantly asking myself questions, about composition and colour and line and finding the answers is what makes the book.

In The Ice Bear the mother and the father each have a totem animal. The mother’s is the Arctic fox, and often when it seems that the child is alone on the ice you can see the fox is there somewhere, watching. The father’s is the owl, a fierce sky hunter. The boy’s is the bear and always will be. And raven, the trickster, a character who is perhaps a force for good, perhaps bad. He steals the bear child, but takes him to the hunter and his wife who have longed for a child. And when it is time he leads him back across the ice and joins the bear people with the human people forever. So is she good, or bad?

During the telling of a tale things can change. When I originally wrote The Ice Bear the raven lured the child out over the ice with small shards of sea glass. But I had wanted the book to be set long before glass was invented. The child becomes the first shaman, a bridge between humanity and the bear people. It was a time when there were no borders and people wondered the land without any border controls. There was no concept of ownership of land. The very idea would have seemed ridiculous. And so I looked for something else, something more timeless and lit upon the idea of amber. Amber is natural, not a manufactured thing. And I have a necklace of amber beads that if taken apart by a mischievous raven would look just like the broken amber heart in the snow.

The Ice Bear has been published now in many languages, French, Spanish, Catalan, Danish, Swedish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese. This is one of the things I love about working with books. Words found on a hill top in Wales can travel the world. I also love the democracy of books. Paintings in a gallery are expensive and usually bought to be hung in one home. Books can be bought, translated, and borrowed from libraries. They can be shared.”

My thanks go to Jackie for so generously sharing some of the stories behind The Ice Bear.

The House of the Golden Dreams (an art gallery featuring Jackie’s work): https://www.facebook.com/TheHouseofGoldenDreams
Jackie on Twitter: @JackieMorrisArt
Jackie’s blog: http://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/blog/

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This month one author in particular has kept my 9 year old busy.

Busy ensconced under her duvet on the sofa.

But also busy bounding around the kitchen and garden doing dare-devil acrobatics.

The author that’s kept her so busy is Marcus Alexander. Marcus is the author of a three book fantasy adventure series, Keeper of the Realms, a set of books which exude energy like few others I’ve read. I swear, if I turn off the lights, the books glow and pulse in the dark (which, thinking about it, is probably another reason why M has been sneakily reading them past her bedtime).

Charlie Keeper has discovered that under her family home there is a gateway to the mythical, magical realm that is Bellania. But Bellania’s fate hangs in the balance, and Charlie Keeper holds the key. She’s a blinder of a lead character, with an adventurous, courageous spirit, and her exploits left me and M with our eyes the size of small plates, holding our breath and really rooting for her as she battles against evil.

Marcus’s love of extreme sports has informed some of the action in the series; Charlie learns to play K’Changa, a game with elements of Capoeira, Chinlone and Tekraw and M hasn’t stopped player her solo version this Easter holiday (in the books it’s a sport played by two players, against each other) – a sort of competititve crazy keepy-uppy with all the outrageous moves you can muster.

With so much “playing by the book” going on, I was really delighted to be able to interview Marcus recently, with a little bit of help from my 9 year old M. Here’s how our conversation went:

Zoe: Where does this adrenalin and passion which informs so much of what you do come from?

Marcus: Books! I guess you could say it was jealousy of the life the heroes were living in all the novels that I devoured as a teenager that inspired me to go out and get something fresh and wild of my own.

Zoe: And how does this buzzing inside you, this energy marry with being an author, which at a very basic level has to involve sitting down and working quietly on your own?

Marcus: It’s an odd cycle. Books cause me to go out and taste the extreme but in return, once I’ve temporarily sated my thirst I’ve an urge to write. It ebbs and flows but each urge seems to compliment the other.

Zoe: Or maybe you don’t sit down to write? Where do you write best? With hubbub around you? Music on?

Marcus: I can’t write at home! It’s too easy to procrastinate so I do my best writing elsewhere. (If there’s music on you know I’m going to have to dance, right? jeje)

Zoe: Or does writing offer you an opportunity for quiet and solitude which allows you to refuel for other parts of your life?

Marcus: A period of quiet is always necessary. It’s a great way to recharge before going out and chasing the ‘X’ again.

Zoe: You’re a big believer in thinking outside the box – is this something which fed into the approach you took to getting published?

Marcus: Thinking outside the box is a must. It’s helped me to overcome all the obstacles in my life. Particularly getting published. I wasn’t rich, famous or had any industry hook ups and I wasn’t keen on the idea of giving an agent 15% of my cut so I was left with no option other than to look for different path. I know most authors get captivated with the story but books are products and publishing houses need to make profit so I approached the issue from a business point of view. I self published 2000 units with an intent to prove the commercial validity of my product. I sold 1,500 and gave away 500 for marketing and reviews. Finally armed with my sales figures, reviews and fan following (and Charlie Keeper inspired graffiti artwork that had boomed across London) I went straight to Puffin without the need for an agent.

Zoe: You’ve described yourself as “a complete and utter bookworm” as a child – what fantasy books and comics/graphic novels did you particularly enjoy?

Marcus: Being a Brit kid I was hooked on 2000AD and Judge Dredd (Yeah, I know, typical 80s brat, right? Lol) But I started reading furiously at ages 3-4 and it was (don’t laugh!) ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and anything Dr. Seuss that really opened that window in my brain to other worlds and fantasy. It was these in particular that cranked my imagination and kindled that flame within my heart.

Zoe: What’s the most recent book you’ve read which you really loved?

Marcus: I’m a fan of Steph Swainston and her ‘The Year of Our War’ with the winged messenger Jant. I can’t stand first person books but she does it with so much flavour and style that she’s completely changed my opinion. Awesome prose and storytelling! (And Steph, if you’re reading this, dude, please put pen to paper and bring out some more books sooooooon!)

Zoe: The Keeper of the Realms series has fantastic artwork by Zul Kamarrudin – how do you work with Zul? Does he show drafts on which you get some input? Is he someone Puffin teamed you up with or someone you knew already?

Marcus: Zul has been with me since my self published book ‘Who is Charlie Keeper?’ I sourced him off Deviantart.com and he’s been epic ever since. I’ll send him a storyboard layout for each character with researched imagery of clothing, pose, hair, jewellery and he’ll get to work. He’ll ping back (he’s based in Malaysia!) some rough drafts and I’ll okay it or suggest changes and after several initial sketches we’ll agree on a final at which point it’ll be taken to completion. Zul, without a doubt, rocks with his graphic floetry.

Zoe: The third volume of the Keeper of the Realms series came out earlier this year. Will there be a fourth volume? Or have you started work on something completely new?

Marcus: Blood & Fire is the last in this instalment of Charlie’s adventures. There will always be more Charlie Keeper coming but for the time being I need a break from the realm of Bellania. It’s simply been too many years and I need to build something new. It’s been a hectic year with tours but with some downtime booked over Easter (going to Sri Lanka, whoop-whoop!) I’d like to start planning a new fantasy series in a different realm.

M (Zoe’s 9 year old daughter): Which character in the series would you most like to be?

Marcus: A Winged One! The idea of living an extra couple of hundred years sounds amazing (c’mon now, think of all the travel and experience you could pack into those years!) and being able to fly would be a big plus too lol.

I’m looking to complete my skydiving licence this summer so while I might not be flying like a Winged One at least I’ll be getting the experience of falling

M (Zoe’s 9 year old daughter): What turned Narcissa evil?

Marcus: A lack of early morning coffee. (Seriously, you should see me first thing on a Monday morning without a cup of the black stuff in my hand – the word grumpy doesn’t do the experience justice.)

M (Zoe’s 9 year old daughter): Where do the shades come from?

Marcus: Bane and his Dark God twisted the beauty of the Chiming Grounds (Book 3, Blood & Fire) and it’s there that they created the Shades.

Zoe: You’ve recently taken up skydiving – I guess partly because of your belief that when you’re not writing it’s important to keep learning new skills to keep the imagination flowing. What parallels do you see between writing and skydiving? The need to have faith? The need to commit?

Marcus: The need to overcome my fear. I used to fight because it terrified me but as the years passed I grew more confident and no longer felt the need to jump into the ring. Skydiving however terrifies me. Not the free fall or deploying the ‘chute but having to suck up the guts for that initial jump out the plane. For me, facing and overcoming your fear is a true source of strength. Adrenaline sports gives a lot to writers, the rush, the joy and that taste of fear and for a fantasy writer that fixates on action it’s a great boon.

Zoe: Reading between the lines in various interviews and comments you’ve made on videos on your youtube channel, I get the sense you like your food. In a ideal world, what would you put on your hospitality rider in terms of snacks to eat / lunch to share with kids at school visits?

Marcus: Seared kangaroo with homemade sweet chilli sauce?
Caramelised duck breast with a honey and ginger jus?
Or that old school classic of salt and pepper ice cream?
Yummage!

Zoe: Travel has always been a large part of your life. What locations are still on your dream list for the future?

Marcus: Africa! The largest continent with the most countries. I’ve got to get that done. (I’ve done Morocco and the Sahara but I don’t think that that really counts.)
South America with the tequila, history and amazing dance styles.
China for its landscapes.
Japan for its deep powder, beautiful gardens, fashion and style.

Zoe: And finally, have you any advice for supporting and encouraging bookworms?

Marcus: Bookworms rock! With your powerful imagination and your ability to think outside the box you’re already one-up on everyone else. Just don’t get so stuck between the pages that you forget to live your life to the max.

Those heroes and heroines that you love reading about and that inspire you so much? They’re the reflection of what you can and should be. Take their essence and apply it to yourself. Want to move like a hero? Go to capoeira or parkour class. Want to learn how to defend yourself? Go to MMA or Muay Thai class. Need adventure in your life? Go and travel during your school holidays and see new horizons and cultures. Too scared to do any of these or too timid to consider starting something new? Remember the determination and drive your heroes and heroines have in those books you love? That’s you!

Take that urge to overcome all obstacles and hurdles and apply it to your life. Bookworms, if you’ve got the courage and the imagination, you can master your life in a way that those who don’t read will never be able to match.

Playing by the Book – a huuuuuuuge thanks for all the funky fresh questions. Super appreciated!

Zoe and M: Thank YOU Marcus!

An slightly different version of this interview also appears today on the blog of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. If you want to find out what schools can expect from Marcus should he be invited to pay them a visit, or what are the strangest questions he’s ever been asked on a school visit, do head on over to find out.

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This weekend I was in heaven. 48 hours of being surrounded by articulate, engaging, thought provoking, charming, and downright inspirational people does a lot towards making the world seem a good place.

Here are just a few of said people:

Cressida Cowell was on a high from having come pretty much straight from being present at the recording of the film score for ‘How to train your Dragon 2′. Always enthusiastic, my favourite line from her was, “Writing picture books is like writing haikus for aliens.”

Sarah McIntyre and Philip Reeve need to put on a West End/Broadway Show; they have it all in terms of panache, fun, costumes and great song. We also got a sneak peek of their next book, ‘Cakes in Space’. Wow.

Meg Rosoff bravely shared pictures of her brain with us (yep, the slide above shows her brain when she sits down to try and write a new book). If ever you have the opportunity to listen to Meg talk, seize it with both hands. She was incredibly engaging, witty and clever. I sound a bit like a fawning teenager, but seriously, she was incredible.

Two people I met this weekend made me cry with their beauty and thoughtfulness, and one of them was Ruta Sepetys. As you can see, Ruta also made me BEAM. If you haven’t read her books, you have such a treat ahead of you, and when you learn some of the stories behind the books your heart will break and then be made whole again.

Lyn Gardner spoke with such infection enthusiasm for her Olivia I found myself wanting to run off to stage school.

Anthony Browne (centre) terrified all of us present with stories about how a gorilla once took a chunk out of his leg, and the TV crew filming insisted on carrying on! Helen Oxenbury sparkled with charm and mischief. It was especially interesting to hear how even though both illustrators use a lot of watercolour in their work, they approach it in such different ways.

There were very many more treasured moments this weekend, but I was too busy listening or deep in conversation to take photos! On a very personal note, I had enormous fun interviewing Damian Kelleher, Cate Cain, Sarah Crossan, Anne Cassidy and Ian Beck. It was simply an honour to share a stage with them.

So the folk around were pretty amazing (slight understatement there!), and the setting was beautiful:

Over the next couple of days, more photos of all the authors and illustrators I shared my weekend with will be up here. But now I’m off to do a little bit of reading (I returned this weekend with 63 books….)

Happy Reading to you all!

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The last couple of weeks haven’t seen much action from me here on Playing by the book, but that’s not because I haven’t been busy with books. On the contrary, I’ve been busy interviewing:-

Lyn Gardner, talking about writing for children’s theatre as opposed to children’s books

Sarah Crossan, discussing how verse novels differ from prose novels

Damian Dibben, dreaming of Benedict Cumberbatch and Alfonso Cuaron

and Ruta Sepetys, exploring where solace can be found (click on the names to read my interviews)

…as well as preparing to interview Cate Cain, Damian Kelleher, Anne Cassidy, and Ian Beck face to fact next week …in front of an audience …of librarians, school teachers and other adults passionate about books for children and young people. (It’s going to be equally enjoyable and nervewracking!)

Yes, on Friday the Federation of Children’s Book Group’s annual conference kicks off (with none other than Cressida Cowell!), and then all the way through to Sunday lunchtime I will be living, eating, sleeping, dreaming books even more than usual.

Next week I shall report back with lots of photos, bringing you news from Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, Meg Rosoff, Anthony Browne and Helen Oxenbury, Holly Smale, Julian Sedgwick, Damian Dibben, Abie Longstaff, Megan Rix, Justin Somper, Lauren Child, James Mayhew, Mick Inkpen, Guy Parker Rees and Atinuke, in addition to the authors I’ll be interviewing in person.

But in the mean time I’m in marathon training. Book marathon training. My favourite sort of marathon training, and the best way to prepare for the conference!

Once Easter is over I’ll be back to a full programme of posting here with lots more reviews and interviews and in the meantime you can always find me on Twitter.

Happy Reading!

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Lari Don is one of my best discoveries of 2013. A storyteller and award winning author, with a range of books to her name which includes picture books, early readers and novels (her 20th book in just six years of writing will be published later this year), I discovered her when researching children’s authors who feature Orkney in their work.

M and I are currently working our way through Lari’s First Aid for Fairies Series, full of magic and music and set in contemporary Scotland, whilst as a whole family we’ve really enjoyed her newest book, a collection of retellings of Scottish myths, entitled Breaking the Spell.

We’ve being doing lots of “playing by the book” inspired by Lari’s work, but it mostly involves pretending to be dragons and centaurs and running around the garden singing, so I haven’t got photos to share with you. But what I do have, is an interview with Lari; I hope it will inspire you to seek out her books and discover her for yourself.

Playing by the book: Would you tell me a little bit about Breaking the Spell – how you chose the stories for inclusion, for example?

Lari Don: I was very lucky – Frances Lincoln [the publisher] gave me a free hand, and I chose my favourites! But I know and love dozens of Scottish stories, so even with the aim of sharing my favourite legends and folktales, I had to make a few strategic decisions.

I was keen to mix lesser known stories with stories which are better known. I love the story of Tam Linn, the boy stolen by the fairies who grows into a fairy knight then is rescued by a brave girl called Janet, and I’ve used it as inspiration for several of my novels, so I really wanted to include that. I’m delighted that Tam Linn is the title story of the book (because Janet breaks the spell…) It’s probably one of the best known Scottish fairy tales.

Other stories often associated with Scottish folklore are the shapechanger stories of selkies and kelpies, but I’ve never really connected with the best known selkie story about the selkie wife – a seal who becomes a woman when she comes on shore, but can’t change back because a fisherman steals her sealskin, then forces her to marry him. So instead of telling that story, I’ve told a story that happens AFTER that story, about a child of a selkie and a fisherman. It’s a bit dark and gory, but then lots of old stories are! And the kelpie story I tell in Breaking the Spell is absolutely original, because it’s based on a family story from my mum’s childhood on Skye.

Then, with those well-known Scottish magical creatures – fairies, selkies, kelpies – represented, I could start looking at less well-known Scottish stories, like the Celtic hero Cuchullin learning from a female warrior on Skye, the Witch of Lochlann trying to burn down Scotland’s forests, and a crofter who steals a monster’s baby… creating what I hope is a mix of familiar and surprising.

Playing by the book: What stories “got away” and couldn’t be included?

Lari Don: Well, I love Viking stories, and with groups of older children I often retell a bit of the Viking Orkneyinga saga from the point of view of the invaded (and victorious) Scots. But we decided not to put that story in this collection because it is (loosely) based on historical record, rather than pure legend. I may tell it somewhere else some time!

Playing by the book: Ooh, so are there are plans for another collection?

Lari Don: Another collection? Well, I’d love to, but I’ll have to wait to be asked…

Playing by the book: I’d like to explore a little the differences between oral storytelling and writing books; I would imagine for a storyteller it can feel strange choosing a single version of a story to set down in black and white. What does it feel like to you?

Lari Don: I do find writing retellings and collections of myths and legends very different from writing my own original fiction. I never retell a traditional story in print that I haven’t told to an audience, and when I’m working up a story to tell it out loud, I might make very sketchy notes, but I don’t ever write it down in full. I just work out how the story makes sense to me, let it come to life in my head, then tell it as I see it to the audience.

So… when I come to write that story for a collection, it’s a bit like taking dictation from myself. I just type the story as I tell it to myself. It then needs a few tweaks to make it work on paper, but it is essentially the story I tell out loud. And though I do change stories over time as I tell them (quite a lot sometimes, depending on the audience, and also on new things I might learn about the stories), what I’m keen to discover over the next few months is whether I still feel I can change and play with a story once it’s been put down in print. I do hope it won’t change my relationship with these stories. I don’t think it will though – I retold Tam Linn at a preview of Breaking the Spell at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and I loved it as much as ever, and felt myself inside the story as much as ever.

This feeling of knowing the story before I write it is very different from my fiction writing, where I work out the story as I go along and don’t know what’s going to happen at the end until I’ve written my way there. So though my adventure novels are often inspired by the legends I love, I write them in a totally different way.

Playing by the book: I loved reading how when you are doing storytelling sessions in school you invite children to tell you other variants of the story you are telling, and also the scene in First aid for fairies where Yann and Helen tell the same story but from different points of view. Have you ever considered writing a pair of books which tell the same story but from different perspectives?

Lari Don: I have not yet told competing versions of a story, but I wouldn’t have a problem doing that, as I genuinely believe there is no one right version of a story!

But yes, that scene in First Aid for Fairies where they argue about the two versions of Tam Linn (from the human and the fairy points of view) is very much a dramatic distillation of my attitude to stories. I’ve done the same sort of thing when I tell a Viking invasion story from the Scottish point of view rather than the way the Norse saga writers told it. There are so many ways a story can be told, and the storyteller, the audience and the atmosphere on any particular day are all vital parts of that alchemy. And I don’t think there is a wrong way to tell a story. We all do it differently, and that’s fine!

Playing by the book: What are your favourite aspects of storytelling versus writing? What are the most challenging aspects of each?

Lari Don: My favourite thing about storytelling in the traditional sense, ie the standing up (or sitting on the floor) and telling an old story to an audience, is the most fundamental thing about storytelling. Sharing a story, keeping it alive, and passing it on to people who may tell it, share it and pass it on in their turn. Also I love the sense of being part of a tradition, the connection to tellers who have told these stories before. And I don’t think that connection is broken by a desire to retell a story in your own and different way.

And the other best thing about live storytelling is instant feedback from an audience. There is nothing like the moment of silence you get at the most dramatic bit of a story, when everyone is holding their breath, waiting to see what happens next!

My favourite bits about writing would take a novel to describe. But briefly – making it up, getting to know the characters, and living inside the story.

The challenges of storytelling are also the fun bits: the research to find the right stories, getting the story right in your head and in your voice (I tell a new story to cuddly toys, usually a squirrel and a dragon, until the story is strong enough to tell a live audience) and then finding the right stories to tell a specific audience – which often means changing plans at the last minute when you see who you have sitting in front of you.

The challenges of writing are different. Finding the peace and quiet to think, finding the time to do an idea justice, choosing which of many ideas to bring to life first. But when you finish a book and believe you have done the best you can with it, it’s a great feeling!

Playing by the book: I imagine that having the skills and passion of an oral storyteller must be so helpful when it comes to doing author events…

Lari Don: I think being comfortable performing and talking about stories is really helpful when it comes to promoting books, and I do enjoy it. You can’t really know what children find exciting or dramatic or emotional or funny until you actually tell them stories, read them passages, and chat to them about their own stories and writing. So while I try very hard not to use children’s ideas in my own writing (I’d rather they turned those ideas into stories themselves) I do find working in schools and libraries and at book festivals very inspiring. I might love a story, but it doesn’t come alive when I tell it, then it clearly doesn’t work (in that form) with kids. But if I tell a story and the hall is silent, and when I finish the hands fly up with questions and ideas, then I know it works. Those are the stories that made it into Breaking the Spell!

And that works for fiction writing too. I often read out drafts to kids (usually whatever I was writing on the train to the event) and get feedback. Kids are wonderfully honest!

Playing by the book: What’s the best (/strangest) question you’ve ever been asked at an author event?

Lari Don: There are quite a lot, but probably the most surprising and hardest to answer was when I was asked which of my own children I would feed to a monster (if forced, like the characters in the dragon story I’d just told, to choose one.) I didn’t feel able to give a definitive answer to that question, instead I threw it open to general philosophical debate.

Playing by the book: Ha! That was cleverly done

How do you create a working balance between actual writing and promotion (ie author events)?

Lari Don: I love this question. If you ever find the author who has got that balance right, I’d love to hear how they do it! I reckon I juggle four things: Writing, which I love. Events with kids, which I also love, and which may take time and energy but also repay me in inspiration, and in time to write and think and read while travelling. Online promotion, which I often enjoy (hello booklovers out there!) but which does seem to take up an expanding amount of time. And I’m also a mum, so I occasionally try to spend time with my own kids. It often feels like I have four full-time jobs, and that I’m not giving quite enough time to any of them. But I know that most writers (and most working mums!) feel the same… However I am passionate about stories, about writing them and sharing them, which makes being a kids’ writer, with all its pressures and contradictions, the best job in the world for me.

Playing by the book: I’ve read you love editing and I’m intrigued by this – I think quite a lot of writers, especially early in their career, find editing terribly difficult – as if it is throwing away lots of hard work. What do you love about editing? And how does this effect your relationship with your editors at your publishers?

Lari Don: Ah. I do love editing. And I think it’s because of how I write. Especially when I’m writing adventure books, the fiction that I base on Scottish magic and landscape, I really do just make it up as I go along. I work out the plot and the characters’ reactions and the dialogue and the resolution as I go. I just point the characters in the direction of a problem, put lots of obstacles in their way, and follow along with them to see what happens. It is a wonderfully exciting way to write, but fairly chaotic.

So when I reach the end of the story I have usually written a long journey with many winding detours, and I have to go back and slash it to bits. I have to turn a meandering stroll into a sharp pacy adventure. And that can mean losing thousands or even tens of thousands of words. (I gather that writers who plan don’t have to do this! But do they have has much fun on the way?) I think of editing as finding the story in among all the words. It is really satisfying, especially when everything joins up and makes sense, and particularly when I know I have written something original that I could simply not have planned, because it grew organically out of the characters’ journey.

I also enjoy the final edit, when I am making sure that I am telling the story (shorter and tighter as it now is) in the best possible words. I get very nitpicky at that point and will read the same sentence a dozen times or more until I’m happy.

None of this feels like throwing away hard work. It feels like refining and perfecting, and making all the hard work shine.

And I have no idea how this affects my relationship with editors, because it’s the only way I know how to do it. I do love working with editors though, because a good editor tends to ask awkward questions about the plot, and I find answering those questions always makes the book stronger.

Playing by the book: Although pace and plot are what drives your stories, setting is clearly incredibly important too (even if _scene setting_ isn’t something you enjoy: you’ve previously said, “I haven’t got a lot of patience with scene-setting“).

Genuine locations all over Scotland feature in your books, a device I think can really pull readers and listeners in, making the story even more real in their heads and hearts. I’m rather envious of you being able to use research as an “excuse” to explore Scotland. What do you love about your country and where is your favourite place in Scotland?

Lari Don: These are such challenging questions – you’ve clearly done your research! It is a contradiction, isn’t it? Setting is so important to my writing, because all my novels and most of the stories in Breaking the Spell are set in very specific geographical areas; yet I don’t like wasting my time or the readers’ time with lots of flowery description.

It was easy in Breaking the Spell, because I could trust Cate James’ illustrations to create the forests and mountains… But in the novels, it is more of a contradiction. What I usually say to kids who feel they ought to spend the first three paragraphs of any story describing the scenery and weather before getting to any exciting action (especially when someone has asked them to ‘set the scene’) is that I tend to describe scenery only while my characters are being chased through it! (That’s not completely true, but it’s a good goal to aim for!)

What do I love about Scotland? What does anyone love about their home? I love so many things about Scotland… The fact that the landscape looks great even in the rain has to be one of the main things. And Scotland has produced lots of very magical stories, which may grow out of our historical mix of cultures and influences, and I feel very lucky to be surrounded by so much inspiration.

Deciding on my favourite place in Scotland is not hard at all. When I researched Storm Singing, an adventure novel based in cliffs and caves in the north of Scotland, I spent a freezing cold February weekend in the county of Sutherland, in the very far north west of Scotland. I wrote notes on snow-covered beaches, wearing two pairs of gloves. (So my notes were almost unreadable when I got home.) And I fell in love with the area, with the silence and the emptiness and the amazing rocks. I’ve been back to Sutherland on holiday every year since. Many of my books and stories are set in bits of Scotland I already loved (three of the Breaking the Spell stories are set on or near Skye for example, and First Aid for Fairies takes a trip up to Orkney) but Sutherland is somewhere I discovered because I was setting a book there, and I will always be grateful to the local seal legends for that!

Playing by the book: So, given the love of landscape, what about the language? Do you ever write in Scots?

Lari Don: Not often. Like many people, as a child, I spoke one language in the playground and learnt to write another in the classroom, and so while I can speak Scots, I naturally write in English. Many of the words I use in telling stories out loud are Scots, but when I come to write them down, I can’t help translating into English. I’m not really sure how I feel about that habit. It does lose a bit of the flavour of the language, but it also makes the stories more accessible outside Scotland! I fought off that tendency to write ‘proper’ in one of the stories in Breaking the Spell though – there’s a rhyme in Whuppity Stoorie which is written exactly as I speak it. I wonder how many readers will understand every word of it? But so long as readers get the jist of it, that will be fine for keeping the story rolling along!

Playing by the book: And now one last, very different question. You were involved in student politics, and then used to work for the SNP – what are your thoughts on the independence refendum?
Lari Don: I am a little bit involved in the referendum campaign – mainly as someone campaigning on doorsteps in my local area, when I can. But I also recently took part in a debate at the Edinburgh Book Festival about young voters and the referendum campaign (the Scottish government has voted to allow 16 and 17 year olds the right to vote on Scotland’s future.) And I am campaigning for Yes, for an independent Scotland.

However my desire for independence has nothing to do with my love of Scotland’s landscape and magical legends, and far more to do with my hopes for Scotland’s future. I am a strong believer in self-determination, and that definitely does affect what I write. I believe that children in books should solve their own problems without adults appearing at the last minute to sort things out, and that girls in fairy tales should defeat their own dragons without waiting for a prince to turn up and save them. On the same basis, I think that a small country with its own resources should be able to solve its own problems and build its own future, and not have to rely on a 300 year old political union which can never democratically represent us. (But I also believe very strongly in choice, and will be delighted if lots of young people debate the issues, get involved and turn out to vote – however they vote!)

Playing by the book: Thank you, Lari, it’s been a pleasure interviewing you.

Lari Don: What wonderful questions! Thank you very much!

Find out more about Lari on her website: http://www.laridon.co.uk
Read Lari’s child-friendly writing blog at http://www.laridon.co.uk/blog/
Follow Lari on Twitter @LariDonWriter
Find Lari on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/laridonwriter

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Nicola Davies is many things. A zoologist, a writer, a singer, an ambassador, a past presenter of a children’s wildlife programme on TV. With over 30 books to her name, from an especially entertaining non-fiction series illustrated by Neal Layton, to novels, picture books, and poetry (the jewel in the crown that is A First Book of Nature, illustrated by Mark Heard), she is also someone who can make people cry.

At a publisher’s event where I was meant to be being terribly professional, she handed me her new picture book, The Promise, illustrated by Laura Carlin, and I was floored.

Well, wouldn’t you be with a picture book which opens with a mugging?

I won’t say more about The Promise, other than that the tears were profoundly good tears, and if I had to sum it up, I’d describe the book as one part Melvin Burgess, one part Rachel Carson. Now that’s quite something for a picture book, don’t you think?

I recently asked Nicola about her new book, and – more broadly – about the issues that drive her to write, and here’s how our conversation flowed:

Playing by the book: Your new book, The Promise, is “a picture book about transformation, the transformation of landscapes [...], the transformation of human hearts and the possibility of change“. Can you tell us a little more about the book, how it came into being, and what you hope it might achieve?

Nicola Davies: It’s a bit of a saga… My wonderful and best beloved editor at Walker, Caroline Royds (who is responsible for more wonderful books than any other editor of her generation) asked me if I’d be interested in writing a picture book version of The Man Who Planted Trees [by Jean Giono/PBTB]. I knew the book very well but hadn’t read it for years.

I re-read it and loved it all over again but knew that a) I didn’t want to retell someone else’s story, as it felt like a species of theft, and also I’m an author – so I have a fairly substantial ego – and I wanted something that was mine and b) I felt I wanted to write something for a modern world where most people live in urban or semi-urban situations.

For my research on Gaia Warriors [a book Nicola has written about climate change, with an afterword by James Lovelock/PBTB] I’d read about and talked to a lot of people involved in planting and preserving forest around the world so I knew I lot about the role of trees in regulating our atmosphere and also about the amazing transformation that they can bring about in local climate in urban and desert situations, bringing down temperatures and creating rainfall. So all of that was in my mind like soup.

But at the time I was also not well; I had a big and very horrible shoulder injury, and was up to my frontal lobes in hideous painkillers, so I went for a week’s holiday (something I don’t really do much) and just lay in the sun for a week. I wasn’t even consciously thinking of the book I would write. However, I got back, sat at my desk and knew this was The Day.

I didn’t make notes. I didn’t think. I just wrote and in about three hours I had The Promise. I rang Cas, read it to her and I realised the silence on the other end of the phone was her crying. Since then I think we’ve dropped one line, but everything else has remained unchanged.

One of the reasons I feel so unrestrained about singing the praises of my own book this time, is that it feels like it almost came from somewhere else and down my arm. I know in my SOUL that it has a really important and powerful message that can work across all age groups. When A First Book of Nature was published, I said in my speech at the launch that it had important work to do in the world, helping parents and children to reconnect with the simple profound joys of nature.

But I think The Promise has an even wider message, not just about our relationship with the environment but our relationship with ourselves, and that we can change; that a bad beginning doesn’t have to dictate a bad end. Something that I’ve seen the best teachers in the most deprived areas trying to convey to their pupils and a message that comes up again and again in my fiction.

Playing by the book: Yes, I couldn’t agree more.

Listening to your passion, would it be fair to describe you as a campaigner as well as an author?

Nicola Davies: I wouldn’t describe myself as a campaigner. I’m too much on the sidelines. I have been more involved politically and environmentally in the past. But I just get too upset and too angry and then I don’t help.

So telling stories that speak to ‘one heart at a time’ is the best way I can use what I am and what I can do with my life. I wish I’d seen that 20 years ago!

I hope The Promise is going to be the first of a line of picture books with big messages that work across ages. I’ve always said I would rather write one picture book that speaks to a generation than win the Booker, and that’s absolutely true; the problem with picture books is getting them out there, getting people to know about them.

So little children’s writing gets a serious review in the UK press. When the children’s entries for the Costa were reviewed on Radio 4 the presenters thought it was acceptable to say they hadn’t bothered to read them!

If we are supposed to value children and want them to read, then surely the most important writing is for children, and that writing should be valued?

Playing by the book: I couldn’t agree more with you Nicola! Perhaps we should campaign on this together?!

But actually, when I mentioned being a campaigner, I was thinking of your work for the World Land Trust. Can you tell us a little about your role as a World Land Trust Ambassador – what the charity does, and why you want to be involved with them.

Nicola Davies: I’ve been giving the WLT [World Land Trust] the lion’s share of my PLR [Public Lending Right - a fee which goes to authors, generated by their books being borrowed in UK/Eire public libraries/PBTB] for years. But I was incredibly flattered when they asked me to be an ambassador. This simply involves telling people about what they do. I wish I was truly famous then I could tell more people but I do what I can.

They’re such a simply ‘does what it says on the tin’ organisation. They work with the people who live with forests and wildlife to protect both. Sometimes that means buying the land, sometimes it means working carefully within existing and quite legally and culturally complex systems of indigenous land ownership, but it’s never top-down conservation, never the westerner telling the ‘natives’ what to do. And its incredibly successful. I think it’s very telling that WLT is the only conservation organisation that dear, lovely David Attenborough endorses.

I worked with WLT to research my book The Elephant Road, based very closely on their work in the Garo hills in NE India to safeguard elephant habitat and forest based livelihoods for local people.

Then I went to Borneo to see the amazing work WLT are doing with Borneo based organisation Hutan to make a continuous corridor of forest along the Kinabatangan river. It is really heartening to hear how committed the Bornean locals are to find ways to keep their forests, their wildlife and clean up their rivers. Of course the founders, Viv and John Burton, know all my old colleagues from the BBC Natural History Unit so it feels like going back to my roots sometimes too.

Playing by the book: Your passion for the natural world started when you were young, and you’ve argued – as have others who care about our environment – that our “passion for the natural world goes right back to our childhood“. How do we / can we engage young people with the natural world, when all the evidence suggests children are spending less and less time outside?

Nicola Davies: I think parents’ perception of danger is a big factor here. When I was a kid, I had scabs on my knees ALL the time. I was always bumping myself or cutting myself and nobody ever made a fuss. It was part of being a kid. I was allowed lots of unsupervised time, to just bum about in the garden or the fields and BE. Actually statistically not much has changed since the 60s; there is not a paedophile behind every bush and dealing with risk – for both adult and child – is an essential part of being human.

Richard Louv, an American author and campaigner (a real one), published a wonderful book called Last Child In the Woods all about the value of just BEING in wild or semi wild place, and what happens to kids who don’t get it. Its a must-read for anyone who cares about this stuff or who has children.

So my advice? Cut back on the activities and let a bit of your garden get messy and overgrown, so your kids can crawl about in the brambles and make a den out of a rusty old bit of tin roof – and just let them get on with it!

Playing by the book: Was there much time for books in your childhood or were you always outdoors?

Nicola Davies: I was the youngest of 3 by a decade. My parents were old to have me and my mum was sick from the time I was 2. But we always had gardens – my dad and grandpa were great gardeners and countrymen so there were veg plots and flowers – and I was left to roam in them. I was also very bright and a bit weird, I suppose. I didn’t make friends easily (I still don’t) so I was very, very solitary (my mum made cakes and sandwiches for my 6th birthday party and nobody came…really NOBODY).

SO, when I learned to read I LIVED the books I read. And when I was outdoors I was trailing around talking to myself singing invented songs and making up some bonkers story. Really – perhaps it’s no wonder I didn’t have any friends!

As an adolescent (we’d moved to Suffolk by then) I got kind of obsessed with landscape, and I’d walk in the fields staring at the shape of them and how they fitted together. I wanted passionately to be able to paint landscapes. I remember reading The Lost Domain by Alain Fournier at 17 and wanting to paint that sense of mystery into the rolling West Suffolk hills around me.

My parents fostered my love of literature. They came from working class families in Wales where music and literature were very valued. My Dad taught me Keats poems, and whole sections of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, and my Mum bought me Thomas Hardy and DH Lawrence’s animal poems. My Dad played the Dies Ire from Verde’s Requiem at ear-bleeding volume every Sunday morning, and Kathleen Ferrier singing Blow the Wind Southerly. My parents both died when I was in my mid 20s and never lived to see me become human; I was pretty vile until I hit 40. But all that I am now – my writing, my love of painting of landscape and of music – comes from them. I’m the same inside as when I was 8.

Playing by the book: What nature writers/artists for adults or for children do you turn to nowadays for a dose of delight, excitement or understanding?

Nicola Davies: I return time and again to J. A Baker’s The Peregrine. I don’t very often get to the end because the writing makes me stop and think and re-read. It’s one of the few things that make me want to write apart from poetry – Ted Hughes, Seamus Heany, Kathleen Jaimie, John Heath Stubbs, Vernon Scannel, Les Murray… Its a long list!

I read a lot of nonfiction. Richard Holmes is a god, and my old friend Richard Mabey always tells me something new. Simon Barnes‘ work is wonderful too – full of insight and warmth and humour. But it’s actually visual art I find most inspiring – I’m a frustrated painter inside really. Landscapes are still my great love. The little water colours of the Yorkshire landscape that David Hockney did when he first came back from LA were just ravishing, I was physically enraptured, blown away, knocked out by those.

And Peter Doing – his visionary tropical landscapes are astounding. I went to Australia when my kids were small and got exposed to aboriginal art, not just the Northern Territories figurative stuff but the Western Desert dreaming pictures, and they opened my eyes to all manner of things. My favourite artist there is Pansy Napangardi, making pictures of astounding beauty, scale and vision, with deep meaning, just sitting in the desert in a flowery frock. The day I sell film rights or win the lottery, that’s one of the first calls: to the gallery in Sydney that sells her work.

Playing by the book: It’s fascinating to hear how important art is to you, as I’m particularly interested in the role of illustration in your works – a role which is perhaps extra important given their message about the beauty of nature. Your books have been illustrated by a panoply of stellar artists – Marc Boutavant, Salvatore Rubbino, Mark Heard, Brita Granstrom, Neal Layton, Michael Foreman, and Laura Carlin to name but a few. How do you work with your illustrators? What sort of (if any) collaboration is there?

Nicola Davies: I don’t draw any more. I regret not keeping it as part of my life and getting better, but it’s kind of too late to start the process of improving now, I think. And I am now rubbish at it. But I do have a passion for images and when I finish a book I have a really strong sense of the emotional and intellectual job that I want the illustration to do.

Luckily Walker Books let me have a big say in who we use and even more luckily I’ve worked with some brilliant people. The amount of contact varies. Sometimes I never even see the illustrator, but sometimes we chat and meet. Indeed, increasingly it’s the latter. Most of the people you mentioned, especially Mark, Brita, Neal and also Emily Sutton, I worked with and met and talked to about our vision of the book. Salvatore took pictures of my old house by the river in Tiverton and made them the illustrations for Just Ducks!, so he made that book like an autobiography, which was so lovely.

But it would be wrong to say I have any influence on their work and I wouldn’t want to. Illustrators have to let the text speak to them and have their own relationship with it.

Working with Laura has been wonderful. We had very little contact while she was working on The Promise, but I saw her work in progress via the designer of the book, Liz Wood. I saw Laura’s journey, and that was a great privilege. I remember when we were deciding who should illustrate it, well, seeing Laura’s work, I knew at once she was the one

The way she defines space is extraordinary and The Promise is all about how the small scale influences the big, and Laura understands that totally. We spoke at the same conference in January this year and I have to say hearing her speak about her work was so inspiring. I always say great art, certainly the art I like, has to come from a real place, rooted in the identity, the experience, the LIFE – and Laura’s work is entirely consistent with her as a human being. She wears her wisdom and her insight so lightly and her work comes from a deep sense of personal truth and outward looking. We’ve started talking about a new book, which I’m desperate to write.

Playing by the book: That sounds incredibly exciting, Nicola – I can’t wait to hear more about this!

But returning to you as a writer – I think you’re an unusual author, comfortable across a variety of genres, from poetry, to fiction, to non-fiction. What role does narrative play for you in writing, especially in writing non-fiction and poetry? For you, what is narrative, and how is it different (and similar) in your non fiction as opposed to your fiction?

Nicola Davies: Narrative is EVERYTHING. I’m always saying this but it’s the psychological carrier bag that humans have used to pass around truths, from information on how to skin a rabbit to the deep currents in our nature.

I think there’s a perception of narrative as plot, as the stuff that happens, but it isn’t. Narrative is a shape, a structure. It might be made of character, it might be made of plot, it might be made of a single vision. But narrative creates an emotional link with the reader, a channel down which information – fictional or non fictional- can be communicated.

Wordsworth’s poem Upon Westminster Bridge is a narrative. Nothing happens, no characters beyond the voice of the narrator, but it has a shape, a beginning a middle and and end, so you remember it AND the information it contains.

I went to the Children’s Media Conference this year and heard every TV executive say the word “narrative”. I’m not sure some of them had the first idea what that was, but there was a realisation that you can have all the techno wizzery in the universe but if you haven’t got a narrative that engages your viewers’ EMOTIONS, its all a waste of time.

I get very fed up of people talking about interactive media – when books are THE MOST interactive of all: reading isn’t passive. I can’t believe books have been beaten onto the back foot when we have the best, most sustainable and most intrinsically interactive medium of all.

But to get back to what you actually asked…

Narrative is the key. It’s an information delivery system, and whether the information you deliver is five made-up murders and the chase for the killer, or the life of a polar bear, it’s the same. There just isn’t a hard line between fiction and nonfiction, and as soon as you start to draw it you’re in trouble. What’s important is knowing what’s real and what isn’t – the provenance of the information, if you like.

Only grown-ups get their Y-fronts in a tangle over this. Kids get it. For instance, in my blue whale book there’s an illustration of two kids standing on a whale’s flipper. In what world can that happen? Air?? Water??? Where? Kids get that it’s story space, and in story space, stuff that’s real and stuff that’s not is mixed up. But they also get that the stuff you tell them whilst in that story space is true.

I remember running a session at the Tate Modern once and looking at an abstract painting by Lee Krasner. A little girl said “This picture is about [not "of" you notice, but "ABOUT"] what it feels like to be a bird landing in a tree, going fast, the going slow, and landing.”

So a 9 year old was quite at home with the fact that a flat abstract canvas can tell you something about time, space, speed and emotion all at once.

Oh how I love working with children!

Playing by the book: And talking of working with children, I’ve read that you’ve even written opera libretti as part of school workshops. What role does music play in your life? Can you tell me anything about the whisperings I’ve heard about musical adaptations of some of your picture books?

Nicola Davies: Music is huge. I sing with a little band now called Pangolin, although I’ve never had the belief or patience to learn an instrument. This means oddly that I listen to rather less music these days, as I’m always listening to a song over and over to learn it. But music has always had a huge role in my life – as a comfort, as a mood altering drug. And singing most days is becoming more and more important. Songs are another wonderful and very portable form of narrative. I’d LOVE to be able to write songs.

My next picture book – the ‘King Of The Sky’, which Mark Heard will illustrate – has theatrical potential. When I read it at a conference, the very strong reaction to the story made me think, “Ooo. I’ve got something here.” So I sent it to Karine Polwart, a fabulous singer-songwriter, to ask if she’d like to collaborate, and SHE SAID “YES!” – I couldn’t believe it. So now we’re looking into theatrical help from a director friend of mine and the plan is to make it into a musical, but using mainly voice (which Karine is brilliant at) to create something that children will be able to perform and make their own.

Playing by the book: Oh, Nicola, that sounds amazing – definitely something I’d travel to see (Festivals: Are you listening?!).

Thank you so much Nicola for such a lovely conversation today. I’ve gone away with a long reading/viewing list, and I didn’t need the hankies I brought with me this time!

Nicola Davies’ website: http://www.nicola-davies.com/
Nicola Davies on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolakidsbooks

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Today I’ve something completely different for you.

Given the age of my kids I tend to review picture books, chapter books and nonfiction aimed at the under 10 crowd. But over the summer I read a YA novel that took my breath away; and this is no trope, for I finished it gulping for air, both sobbing and full of not-exactly-joy but certainly a passion for life.

I simply couldn’t not share it with you. I want to share the very best of books with you, and this is one of those. Whilst I’m sure it will win awards, I’m even more confident that it will change the shape of your heart and what you see around you.

The book that will do this is Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein.

Starkly put, Rose Under Fire is about life in Ravensbrück concentration camp during the Second World War.

It’s about the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) of the British Royal Air Force and the women who played a part in it. It’s about the “Rabbits”, 86 women on whom brutal medical experiments were conducted without consent, whilst prisoners in Ravensbrück. Its about some of the themes and characters of an earlier (and also excellent, award winning) novel by Wein, Code Name Verity, exploring their lives later in the war. It’s a riveting, deeply moving book, and one of the questions it raises is about how to bear witness to the Holocaust.

I felt the best way I could do that right now, was to interview Wein.

Playing by the book: Rose Under Fire tells a (fictional) account of an American civilian’s experience of her time in Ravensbrück concentration camp towards the end of the Second World War. It is beautiful, sensitive, and brimming with passion, love, hope. It is also utterly harrowing to read. I don’t think I stopped sobbing for the last 100 pages. What on earth was it like to write? (In the afterword you share one instance where you did cry, but the experience of reading it is so emotionally draining – and in equal measure emotionally uplifting – that I can’t believe researching and writing it was any easier on the heart.)

Elizabeth Wein: While I was writing it I kept torturing myself with my inability to tell this story — not only because I can’t possibly experience what these people experienced, but also because of my cowardice in being unable to come close to it. Could I live on a couple of pieces of bread and a bowl of broth every day for a week? I could, but I didn’t. Could I stand outside without a coat in the freezing rain for an hour or two? I could, but I didn’t. I was scared to do it: scared of cold, scared of hunger. And it felt wrong to try, since whatever I did to try to get into their shoes, I wasn’t going to be in their shoes.

And then, there were things that I couldn’t bring myself to write. I baulked at describing how they used cadavers to make the roll calls come out right. For some reason this seemed like my limit — the boundary I couldn’t cross. And then I crossed it anyway because if I don’t tell it, who’s going to know?

Playing by the book: Did you have to lock yourself away? Did you lead parallel lives for the duration, whilst writing? Did you find yourself like Rose becoming immune on some level to the horror?

Elizabeth Wein: Often, I used gaps in Rose’s memory to account for details I didn’t want to have to describe. Rose describes herself as becoming immune to the horror, but it’s probably more accurate to say you get used to it. I’ve discovered that my “immunity” is very specifically related to Ravensbrück itself. I have a heightened familiarity with that particular camp, and I’m fortified against anything I find out that happened there. But when I hear about the atrocities that happened at other camps, places I’m less familiar with, a whole new level of horror hits me. It’s like the inmates of Ravensbrück struggling to understand the rumours coming out of Auschwitz — impossible to comprehend unless you’ve seen it for yourself.

I dreamed a lot about Ravensbrück while I was writing Rose Under Fire, and I never dream about my books. Never. Curiously, in most of my dreams I was visiting, either as an onlooker or at a memorial site in the present day. Sometimes I was being treated as a prisoner, but it was always a simulation—never the real thing.

Playing by the book: Given the emotional intensity of the book I wondered if you have been able to read it since it was published – to revisit it. In the novel, two prisoners from Ravensbruck explore so thoughtfully how difficult it is for them to revisit their experiences (in the context of considering being witnesses at war crime trials after the war is over) and I wondered if you had experienced something like it with your own bearing witness.

Elizabeth Wein: One of my fears is that I’m going to be asked to read Rose’s poems in public and that, like her, I’m not going to be able to do this.

There are some things I can’t talk about. But I can’t write about them either, so yes, I guess I am like my made-up characters in the limits to which I can bear witness. An example is mothers and children in the camps. I managed to write about the cadavers, but not about mothers protecting and losing their children. I know a lot of things I can’t talk about. I guess that’s what makes me feel instinctively that some prisoners might have trouble following through with the promise to “Tell the world.”

Playing by the book: My response to your book got me thinking about “ownership” of stories about the holocaust. Part of me felt guilt for enjoying so very much a book that was only possible because real people suffered, died in the most awful of circumstances. But then I felt that perhaps it is ok for me to feel so connected to Rose’s story because it is about humankind (and the worst of humanity) and we need such stories to feel vital and relevant to us in the hope that it prevents anything like it happening again (and to remind us of the goodness, kindness, beauty all around in everyday life). As the writer of the story how did you feel about ownership? And about the relationship between “truth” and imagined stories?

Elizabeth Wein: This is so true, and so hard, and I talked about it a little in my answer to your question about what it was like to write the book. I really did feel, a lot of the time, that this was not my story to tell. But if I don’t tell it, who is going to any more? The books by the few survivors who tell their own stories are dated and out of print—and not necessarily accessible even when it’s possible to get hold of them. Several of my main sources I had to read in French. So I am telling it as far as I am able. But I don’t own this story. It belongs to the real people who lived it. I am just passing it on — a similar role to Rose’s.

As far as truth is concerned, I tried very hard not to misrepresent anything or sensationalize anything that happened within the context of Ravensbrück. There may be errors, but most of the incidents I’ve described are based on survivor accounts. I guess the difficulty is that the reader doesn’t know how much to believe. I don’t know how to remedy that in fiction — I mean, after all, for all my good intentions, it is a work of fiction.

It never occurred to me to feel guilty about anyone “enjoying” the read, though! The whole time I was writing it I kept thinking, “WHO is going to want to read this? NOBODY is going to want to read this!”

It’s true. I’m rather astonished, and delighted, to find that people are connecting with it so deeply.

Playing by the book: Ownership in another sense intrigued me; you state in the acknowledgements that your editorial team was “much more actively involved” in the creation of Rose Under Fire. Can you share a little more about this, and about how this different sort of genesis for a story felt for you as a writer

Elizabeth Wein: Well, mainly this was because I was operating under a deadline. I’ve written work-for-hire novels before to a deadline, but never a full-length book of my own creation, and that meant that I delivered a manuscript which I considered less than perfect. As a result, I was given more editorial direction in polishing the rough draft than I’ve ever had before.

I’d say that the structure of the novel changed a little as a result, but not the fabric of it. We removed some extraneous scenes and characters. But perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the work was that I had three editors working on this at the same time – Stella Paskins at Egmont in the UK, Catherine Onder at Disney Hyperion in the USA, and Janice Weaver at Doubleday in Canada— and they all had to be consulted and they all had to agree on any changes that I made.

It was actually Stella who came up with the title. All four of us, and my agent Ginger Clark as well, had been emailing back and forth for weeks trying out different combinations of stressful descriptive situations involving the name Rose! We all agreed, from the start, that Rose’s name should be part of the title. My working title was simply “Rose’s Book.”

I was reluctant to give up my control over the timing of the manuscript, but I really did need guidance on the revision, and was grateful for it.

Playing by the book: As part of the research for this novel you visited Ravensbruck. What it the place like today? What still exists? And what did it feel like to be there? Are any of the “Rabbits” (the name given to the women who were experimented on in Ravensbruck, and who play a major role in Rose Under Fire) still alive?

Elizabeth Wein: After the war Ravensbrück ended up deep inside East Germany, and for fifty years it was used as a Soviet Army base. So it had an active and complex history for a long time after it ceased to be a concentration camp. Under the Soviet administration a memorial site was dedicated there in 1959, so the buildings that were part of that project were preserved (essentially, the prison block). The SS barracks outside the camp walls were all used as Soviet officers’ quarters so they are all still standing and are in good shape. They are now part of the current museum and memorial site and also house a youth hostel.

A few of the factory buildings and the walls are still there, but none of the barracks remain standing. The main part of the camp has been cleared and the surface is spread with black cinders, to replicate the memorable ground cover at the time of the camp. Depressions in the ground mark where the barracks stood. Trees that were planted when the camp was first built have now matured, so the effect is that of an open plaza or park.

The administration building where new prisoners were processed no longer stands, but the red-tiled floor of the shower room has been preserved because the initial dehumanizing process of being made to strip, shower, then get your head shaved and be issued with prison clothes was a hugely traumatic experience for most prisoners and made a lasting impression on them. Even those who had been in prison for months before arriving at Ravensbrück found this process shocking.

For me, it was amazing to be at Ravensbrück. I had been so mentally invested in this place for so long (two years) before I finally got to see it. I think in some sense it must be a pale reflection of what a survivor would feel travelling back for a memorial ceremony—it obviously isn’t the place you knew, and yet you recognize it. I knew my way around. I actually ended up giving tours to some of the other people attending the summer school we were enrolled in, because most of them were there for the seminar and not because of the location, so I knew considerably more about the camp than my colleagues.

I wrote a couple of blog entries, including photographs, while I was there:

“Post from Ravensbrück”
“One More from Ravensbrück”

I believe a few of the “Rabbits” are still alive, but I’m not sure which ones. I’ve been constructed a sort of memorial page on my website, with photographs and links to their biographies. I’m about half way through and so far I haven’t been able to confirm those who are still living, but many of them did live long and productive lives after the end of the war.

I believe Wanda Połtawska, the author of And I Am Afraid of My Dreams, is still alive. The heroic Girl Scout Wacława Andrzejak may also still be living.

Playing by the book: And talking of research for your novel, you hold a pilot’s licence and clearly love flying – your knowledge and passion shine through in both Rose Under Fire and Code Name Verity. As someone who doesn’t fly can you describe what it is like to pilot a plane?

Elizabeth Wein: Hahahahaha! That’s not really a question I can answer in a paragraph or two!

I think that what you really take away after a couple of lessons is that it’s actually just a mechanical skill, like driving, which you have to practise and practise until a lot of it becomes automatic. Maybe some people find it intuitive, but not me. You’re not soaring free in the sky like a bird on the wing: you’re checking your oil pressure, making time and distance and wind speed calculations, making sure the engine and radio are set correctly, etc. etc. Learning to fly is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The initial payback is a sense of satisfaction in doing a difficult job well (hopefully), and only then can you look around you and enjoy the beauty of the open sky. I try hard to get this across to my readers, too — it’s something you have to work at and take very seriously, but it really does open up wonders to you.

Playing by the book: What sort of plane do you normally fly? Of the planes you haven’t flown, what sort of plane would you like to fly?

Elizabeth Wein: I did all my training in a Cessna 152, which is a pretty standard training aircraft. Lately I’ve started flying a Piper Warrior, also known as a PA-28, which is a little bigger than a 152 (it seats 4 instead of 2!) and has low wings rather than high wings. They’re both single-engine planes. I am pretty short and find the Warrior is more comfortable for me to see out of!

Of course I dream of some day being able to try my hand at flying a Spitfire. I think every pilot does. But on a more realistic level, I’d really like to learn to fly a floatplane. I did get one lesson in one once. I have this dream where I become an expert seaplane pilot and own a little plane of my own and fly it around Scotland landing on lochs and staying at remote Victorian hotels.

Playing by the book: I understand that you are now working on a book set in Ethiopia in the run up to World War 2. Can you share a few more details? And do you have any hopes or plans to return to Maddie or Rose or any other character from Code Name Verity or Rose Under Fire in the future?

Elizabeth Wein: The new book is set during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, but its focus is on the transplanted American family who finds themselves caught up in it. There are a brother and a sister who learn to fly. I don’t really want to say more because I’m still in the middle of writing it and things are bound to change!

I do have an idea for a book set in the “next generation” of the Code Name Verity world, taking place in the early 1970s, which might feature some characters from CNV or ROSE. I guess what I should emphasize is that in my head, their stories continue before and after the events that take place in the novels. Maddie, I feel, is still alive today. My daughter and a friend and I were discussing a scenario where an elderly Maddie and Jamie are flying to France in the present day, on a scheduled commercial flight, and make a stink in security. Maddie: “I remember flying to France with no lights and 500 pounds of plastic explosive in the back and nobody made me take my shoes off!” Jamie: “You dinnae want to see my feet. I lost my toes in the North Sea.”

Playing by the book: Ah Elizabeth, yes! And how lovely to end the interview with laughter. Thank you. Thank you for your books, for your bearing witness, and – through your writing – for making me feel like I can be a better person than I am.

Elizabeth Wein’s website: http://www.elizabethwein.com/
Elizabeth Wein’s blog: http://eegatland.livejournal.com/
Elizabeth Wein on Twitter: @EWein2412
Elizabeth Wein’s keynote speech at the Federation of Children’s Book Groups’ Conference 2013.

Thanks to Chalet Fan, whose review of Rose Under Fire made me drop everything and head straight to the bookshop.

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Ulf Stark is an author I only discovered this summer, but what a discovery! I’m very excited that he will be here in the UK next month as part of The Children’s Bookshow, an annual tour of children’s authors and illustrators across the UK.

I recently chatted to Ulf over email about his work and here’s what he had to say…

Playing by the book: Were you a bookworm as a child? What children’s books did you especially enjoy?

Ulf Stark: I was not exactly a bookworm as a child. More like a book elephant – a sleepy one with big ears. My first contact with literature was through my mother’s voice. She sat in a chair below mine and my brother’s bed reading for us, every night. It was Pippi Longstocking, Winnie the Pooh, Biggles, books about poor dogs and the stories about Babar, the elephant. My favourite stories were some by the Swedish writer and illustrator Elsa Beskow, Burroughs’ Tarzan books and – best of all – Linklater’s The Wind on the Moon (which is still a favourite).

Playing by the book: I’ve just started reading The Wind on the Moon – what a lot of mischievous fun! I can certainly see why it’s a favourite. So you listened to lots of stories as a child, but did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

Ulf Stark: I never thought about it. I was left handed when I began school – but was forced to use my right hand. So I hated writing. And I understood that a writer has to write. So, not at all, never in my life!

I wanted to be a story listener. Or perhaps a vet, because I loved animals – especially poor dogs (another book I liked very much was Doctor Doolittle). My interest in writing began more as result of normal teenage depression (Who am I?, Why am I?, How can anyone love me?). Writing become a way of escaping from myself. And a way to be / become myself at the same time.

Playing by the book: So what about being an illustrator – you’ve illustrated a few books too. Is that something you wanted to be from an early age? And now, how do you find the process of illustrating different and/or similar to writing?

Ulf Stark: Drawing was my best subject in school. I drew caricatures of my teachers. I drew animals, bats and aeroplanes. And I tried to impress my young friends by drawing nude women, the way I thought they looked.

Playing by the book: [laughing] That sounds like a lot of fun!

On a more serious note, given that your books (at least those which are available in English) deal with themes which don’t often appear in (English) children’s books (death, sex), how do you think writing for children is different from writing for adults (which you’ve also done)?

Ulf Stark: Writing for children doesn’t differ from writing for adults with respect so much to themes. But rather it’s the perspective that’s different. I´m using language as an instrument to approach my childish experiences – my almost forgotten feelings, the way I looked at the world. And when I look back I know that I was definitely thinking a lot about death and sex among thousands of other things. I find it more joyful to write for children. Perhaps because I can write about very serious things without being too pretentious.

Playing by the book: I believe five of your books have been translated into English, Can you whistle, Johanna?, Fruitloops and Dipsticks, My friend Percy’s Magical Gym Shoes, My Friend Percy and the Sheik and My friend Percy and Buffalo Bill. You’ve said in other interviews that Can you whistle, Johanna? is perhaps your personal favourite of all the books you’ve written – you must be pleased it has been translated, but which of your other books (of which there around 50, no less!) would you like to see translated into English?

Ulf Stark: Perhaps: ”A dog named Ajax”. This is a small picture book about a dog (Ajax) who gets given a boy when he is seven years. The dog gives the boy his first sausage (from the dog plate), he teaches him his first word: Woof!, and he’s there for the boy when he takes his first steps. The boy and the dog are the best of friends. As the boy gets older, so does the dog. And now the boy gives the dog his sausages, he’s the support for the dog when the dog has problems walking. And then the dog dies. And the boy goes to the sky, trying to persuade the Master of it all to give him back the dog (who is now a star). But the Master says it’s not possible. He can however have the star’s shadow, so the boy puts this under his bed and one morning he hears the shadow bark.

Playing by the book: To what extent are the books of yours which are available in English representative / typical of your writing? What are we missing out on having so few books translated? Friendship, identity, male relationships, ageing, death, sex, – these are some of the key themes I see in your English books, but what other themes do you like to explore?

Ulf Stark: I think the books which have been translated are representative of my semi-autobiographical works. But I have also written more mythological books, for example The Angel and the blue horse [this was transformed into a play for children in the UK in 2006, and you can listen to the first part of the book (in Swedish) here/PBTB]. This is about God, an Angel and a blue horse, a book about jealousy, for there is a child-god who feels sad and angry when he looks at the angel and the horse playing together. And I have also written a book called Asmodeus about the son of the Devil – a problem child because he all he wants to be is calm, he doesn´t want to be evil at all… You could perhaps categorize it as having a religious theme, but in a very non confessional way. Perhaps another theme could be that about power, a very essential part in the life of children. I have just written a book called The Dictator, about a small dictator and his thirst for power – now conveniently translated into Belarusian.

Playing by the book: Yes, that’s rather good! I hope it does well there

Based on your books which have been translated into English it seems that you weave quite a few autobiographical details into your writing. To what extent is the Ulf in Can you whistle, Johanna?, or the My friend Percy trio of books you? What is enjoyable for you as a writer about including personal stories and details in your books?

Ulf Stark: The Ulf in the books is definitely me. He shares a lot of my feelings and early experiences, we share the same brother and have been brought up in the same house with a bakery and an old people’s home as nearest neighbours. But of course, the autobiographical details are not interesting for the readers because they are true but rather because they are interesting.

Playing by the book: In the UK if you ask someone to name a Swedish children’s author, perhaps the only person many will be able to name is Astrid Lindgren, but who else should we know about? Which other Swedish children’s authors should I be lobbying to be translated?

Ulf Stark: Barbro Lindgren, a wonderful writer. Also Ulf Nilsson and Pia Lindenbaum. In Sweden there are (as in every country) a lot of good writers and a handful of really good ones.

Playing by the book: For The Children’s Bookshow, you’ll be on stage with your English language translator Julia Marshall. Can you describe for us the process of translating your books – for example, do you get any say in how they get translated? Do you and your translator discuss passages, particular words or phrases?

Ulf Stark: Not very often. The translators work in silence. And they don´t want to disturb us unless it’s very urgent.

Playing by the book: Ah, I see! And what do you hope the children and adults attending your Bookshow event will bring with them to your event? And what do you hope they will take away, having heard you and Julia speak?

Ulf Stark: I hope they will bring their good spirits with them, and a lot of questions! And that they walk away in good mood, with a smile on their faces and a lot of more questions in their heads.

Playing by the book: I’m sure they will, Ulf!

And now, for one last question: What are your working on at the moment?

Ulf Stark: A book called The Sister from the Sea. It´s about one of the 7000 children from who were evacuated from Finland to Sweden during the Second World War. Sirrka is evacuated to a family where the daughter is longing for a dog – and is disappointed when instead she gets a ‘sister’. It´s about the way the girls who start out as enemies end up as friends.

Playing by the book: That sounds very interesting. Thank you Ulf, for taking time to answer my questions. I hope you have a a great time as part of this year’s Children’s Bookshow.

The Children’s Bookshow takes place in every autumn and coincides with Children’s Book Week. Its aim is to foster a lifelong love of literature in children by bringing them the best writers and illustrators to inspire and guide them. You can find out more on their website http://www.thechildrensbookshow.com/.

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Last week I reviewed a gorgeous debut picture book, Red Cat, Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond and I’m delighted to be able to bring you an interview with her today.

Playing by the book: Hi Jenni, I was so delighted to discover your picture book Red Cat, Blue Cat – Can you tell my readers and me a little bit about your journey to becoming a published illustrator? Is it something you always dreamed of doing?

Jenni Desmond: As a child I would draw all day and it was always my dream job to be an illustrator. After doing an art foundation, I was very aware of how tough a career as an artist would be, and decided to take the ‘sensible’ route and study English Literature and History of Art, pursuing my passion for stories. After graduating, I taught English in France for a year, but the thought of illustration and drawing always followed me, and when I got back I enrolled on a week summer course in children’s book illustration in Putney, London.

Something in me switched on during that week, and I then spent the next year doing more short courses and obsessively drawing for up to 18 hours a day. I then started the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art (APU) where I studied part-time for 2.5 years. What I learnt on the course was invaluable, and it fuelled my passion for children’s books even more. It became normal to think about illustration every second of every day. After my graduate show, I joined Bright Agency who I’ve been with for just over a year now, and who have been wonderful in keeping me busy.

Playing by the book: What were some of the key points that helped shape your career so far?

Jenni Desmond: The short courses were great to learn about the format of children’s books. My first exhibition with my friend Amy Wiggin where we sold our work to friends and family was a huge learning curve and very exciting. Doing textbooks from quite early on (after sending a mail-out) meant I learnt about how the industry worked. The MA course and the Agency have both been great, but the most important thing has been the support and encouragement from family and friends.

Playing by the book: Who were your favourite authors and illustrators when you were a child? And now? (I wonder about Edward Lear, or Der Struwwelpeter given your penchant for the slightly ridiculous, occasionally macabre cautionary tale like aspects of your own work…)

Jenni Desmond: My mum was very passionate about children’s books so I think her tastes probably rubbed off on us when we were little. Our favourites included Dogger by Shirley Hughes, Burglar Bill by Janet and Alan Ahlburg, Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs, Granpa by John Burningham, The Bad Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle, In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, Not Now Bernard by David McKee, Babar by Jean de Brunhoff, Noisy Nora by Rosemary Wells, The Tiger Who came to Tea by Judith Kerr, Five Minutes Peace by Jill Murphy, anything by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, Anthony Browne, the list goes on forever. We would sit around finding the hidden details in the illustrations, making up our own versions of the stories. I still love these author/illustrators today and have also discovered so many new ones. My favourites at the moment include Elena Odriozola, Anne Herbauts, Wolf Erlbruch, Beatrice Alemagna, Oliver Jeffers, Laura Calin, and John Klassen.

Playing by the book: You’ve said in a past interview that music inspires you a great deal – what sort of music? Do you listen to music whilst you work? Where else do you draw inspiration from?

Jenni Desmond: I use music as a tool. I find that it transports me to my imagination. Upbeat music (with a lot of black coffee) makes me incredibly energized and excited to the point where I can barely sit still, but instead of moving physically I scribble the characters down onto the page, making them dance around. I work to 1920’s Jazz, pop, classical, rock, indie… everything really.

These days I try not to get too influenced by other illustrators. I get my inspiration from a lot of different places. Interior design, nature, people-watching, cycle rides, travel, textures, fabrics, films, literature, food, Japanese art and culture, French art and culture, photography, exhibitions…

Playing by the book: Tell me a bit about you and the use of colour; one of the aspects of Red cat, blue cat which I absolutely love is its colour, and yet I read that the colour came into the book only towards the final stages so I’m curious about what you think of colour, how you use it in your work…

Jenni Desmond: When I was younger I always found black and white line drawing most natural, and having to colour things in a bit of an inconvenience. There was one point though, when I showed a tutor some collage work I’d done, and they pointed out that I was using too many colours and it was a bit hectic. On the way home, I over-thought my use of colour so much that when I looked out of the train window suddenly everything clashed and looked so ugly. It was a really weird train journey. From that point I decided to create my own visual world only using colours that I really loved, that all went together harmoniously. I’ve always liked Matisse’s quote when he says that art should be ‘a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair’. My sense and understanding of colour developed during and after my MA, and although I’m not confident with it, I am learning how to use it through trial, error and experimentation.

Playing by the book: Printing, particularly etching, is something you enjoy. It’s not a technique often seen in children’s books – do you have any ideas/hopes/plans for using it in a picture book? Or is it something you see more for your other creative outlets (your design work, the greetings cards and wedding invites you create for example)

Jenni Desmond: I discovered etching by doing a short course a couple of years ago. It was fun working in a print studio and I loved the smell, the mess, the process, the big printing press. A slightly boring line suddenly takes on a new quality when it is a print. Through beginners luck, I entered one of those first etchings into the Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition and got in, which gave me confidence to produce more to sell at other exhibitions as another source of income. I would love to do a book using etchings so much. I don’t know why printing isn’t used in books more. I have actually been plotting a book using etching for the last few months, and I hope it will happen one day.

Playing by the book: Cats are a theme in many of your illustrations – not only is there Red Cat, Blue Cat, but your next book (I believe), also features a Cat (Backstage Cat, written by Harriet Ziefert to be published in 2013). Are you a Cat Person? What are your favourite cats in illustration?

Jenni Desmond: I am more of a dog-person believe it or not. However, my family cat Kinga was a massive source of inspiration as she was very loud, demanding and a bit bonkers. The second book Backstage Cat wasn’t written by me so it wasn’t my choice to have a cat as the protagonist. I’ve loved drawing cats, but I think I’ve had enough now. However, it is always very tempting to add pointy ears, whiskers and a tail to things.

Playing by the book: Can you tell us a little about the work you have in the pipeline? The Emperors new clothes – or is this already published in South Korea?

Jenni Desmond: The Emperors New Clothes is being published this autumn in South Korea. It has buttons that you press to listen to the story in Korean, which is pretty cool. I am doing a few new and exciting book things but they are top secret at the moment! My friend Caro and I have just launched a wedding stationary company at foldedpaperdesigns.com, and at some point I would love to develop an illustrated textile and interiors range.

Playing by the book: Thank you so much Jenni, it’s been a delight to talk to you. I’m really looking forward to your next book!

You can find Jenni on twitter @JenEDesmondArt
You can read Jenni’s blog here.

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I’m a great believer in the power of seeing an author / illustrator live to spark kids’ imagination and excitement about reading. So you can imagine how much I like the idea of The Children’s Bookshow, an organization which arranges an annual tour of children’s authors and illustrators across the UK.

The tour takes place in the autumn and its aim is to foster a lifelong love of literature in children by bringing them the best writers and illustrators to inspire and guide them. One of this year’s featured author/illustrators is the Belgian illustrator Carll Cneut.

Born in 1969 in a small village on the Belgian/French border Carll did not grow up dreaming of being an children’s book illustrator. In fact, he seriously considered a career as a circus artist before eventually settling down to study Graphic Design at the Saint-Lucas Arts School in Gent, the city where he still lives today.

Following graduation, Carll worked for a publicity agency but a chance meeting let to him being asked to illustrate a children’s book, Varkentjes van Marsepein (Piglets of Marzipan), in collaboration with Flemish author Geert De Kockere. This was the start of something unexpected and exciting for Carll, his first major project as a children’s book illustrator. Now he has more than 30 books to his name! Several of these have won prestigious prizes in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and France and in 2010 Carll Cneut was one of five illustrators shortlisted as finalists for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.

My kids and I have been familiar with Carll Cneut’s work for some time now, having several of his Dutch language books. When I saw he was coming to the UK as part of The Children’s Bookshow I jumped at the opportunity to interview him. Here’s how our conversation went…

Playing by the book: Hello Carll!

I write about children’s books at Playing by the book and I’ve a special interest in books translated into English from other languages, so it’s a real pleasure for me to be able to put a few questions to you ahead of your visit to the UK as part of The Children’s Bookshow.

What role did books play in your childhood? What were your favourite books? Given how popular comics are in Belgium, and that you went on to study Graphic Design (a route into creating comics), were comics indeed part of your childhood (as it happens my two girls love Suske en Wiske – we’re a bilingual English/Dutch home)?

Carll Cneut: Comics like Suske en Wiske and Jommeke are part of every child’s upbringing here in Flanders. I especially liked Jommeke as his adventures were more based on real life. And early on I started to draw the Jommeke character everywhere. I consider those – together with Mickey Mouse – my first attempts to drawing.

From an early age I started collecting illustrated fairy tale books, intrigued as I always was by the actual book, meaning the beautiful object a well published book can be; and the images. And although I didn’t read very much as a child, I owned tons of books, to just look and feel them. 

Playing by the book: Elsewhere you’ve described how you didn’t start out aiming to be a children’ book illustrator but now you are very happy to be exactly that – can you share with us some of what you enjoy so much about being an illustrator (and perhaps how it is different from what you imagined)?

Carll Cneut: As it is – I can’t even imagine being anything else than a book illustrator even though I never planned to become one. As a book illustrator you have the chance to create time after time an entire universe between two bookcovers. Also a book has a long life, opposed to editorial illustration. But the biggest difference from what I imagined it to be, is that it is not a solitary job. I’ve been travelling a huge amount the past years, meeting the public, doing readings or presentations. The time that being a bookmaker meant sitting behind your drawing or writing table seems so far behind us. I equally enjoy all the meetings with the public as much as sitting behind my desk. It keeps me balanced. 

Playing by the book: I’ve read that your first name came about possibly by accident – your father added an extra “l” when he went to register your birth. What role (if any) do accidents play in your illustrations? I’ve heard other illustrators say that key details in their work are sometimes the result of an accident (and how this is perhaps becoming less common as more illustrators move to the computer); your work, however, seems painstaking and precise, without room for “mishaps”.

Carll Cneut: I’ve always believed that there are 2 kinds of book illustrators, one type who works from the heart, and the other one who constructs books from the mind. Both are equally valuable, but I definitely belong to the second category. I construct. So coincidence rarely happens, as everything is decided whilst making the dummy of the book. I don’t have the natural ability of drawing easily, so I work with several layers whilst drawing, to bring al the different elements together in the final illustration.

That said, coincidences do happen whilst painting, like finding a new way to paint, or having different brands of paint conflicting with each other  bringing a weird effect to the result. A good example of a coincidence in my work are the backdrops in the book ‘Het geheim van de keel van de nachtegaal’ (The secret of the nightingale’s throat ) where I needed a Chinese inspired feel to the book. I created the backgrounds by dragging different layers of paint with an old piece of board over the paper, which was an accidental find whilst cleaning my working table.

And I do love the sense and smell of the material, the white scary paper before starting an illustration. I would miss it too much if I moved to the computer. 

Playing by the book: Even though your work is meticulous and has the quality of “fine art”, you enjoy leaving it somehow “unfinished”, to create a space for viewers to add their own contribution. Was this aspect of your work something you consciously worked on, or is it something that has become apparent by itself over time? I guess this is a lead in to asking how do you think illustrators can and do develop their own style – and how do you discuss / teach this, in your current role as a teacher of illustration at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent?

Carll Cneut: It is something I always have found very important as I always believed a picture book should leave room for interpretation by the reader. A reader who should actively participate and be part of the book. I try to drag the reader into the book. A good example is the first illustration in my book Willy. On the first page you see a piece of a trunk and two feet, and no background. It is a human reflex to complete the drawing in your own head. Everyone sees an elephant, although he isn’t shown.

It is like drawing without a pencil. At that moment the reader becomes the third maker of the book. I also try to create the same demand to contribute through many other things, like often only showing the main characters in profile, but having their emotions shown through how they hold their bodies, so the reader enters into this character to imagine the facial expression. Or by spending time on the outfits of the characters, working through many layers of paint to give the clothes some life and history, so the reader should wonder why the character might wear these specific clothes, and why the clothes don’t look brand new, leaving space for the reader to imagine where this character comes from, how his life was before he ended up in this book etc… Or by adding little stories in the illustrations which have nothing to do with the main story. The funny thing is that children notice these extra little stories very quickly, whilst adults almost never notice them

I think the most important thing I can teach my students about book illustration is ‘everything which isn’t written in the text, is the freedom of the illustrator’. Of course everything should correspond correctly with the written story, but there is so much freedom which can be used to make the book more interesting, or more layered. As for developing their personal graphic style, that is a matter of thorough research of materials and their use, and of course some luck too. 

Playing by the book: We’re lucky at home because we read your books published both in English and in Dutch. Do you think the books of yours available in English are representative of your work in general? Which of your books not available in English would you like to see translated?

Carll Cneut: I would have loved for “Het geheim van de keel an de nachtegaal” (The secret of the nightingale’s throat) to be translated, but I guess it is an a-typical book, in the sense that it is much more text than a regular picture book, and aimed at older children. I also did a book called Dulle Griet, where the story is based on the painting De Dulle Griet by Breughel. It has an entirely black cover, and the story talks about hell, and the devil , and even death. I am aware that this book would cause a scandal in the UK, but it might initiate a discussion about the use of children’s books, in these times where we have to box up against the digital world. I also should say that children only pick up from this book what they are able to assume, so most kids don’t pick up on the suicide thing, they just think the monsters and skeletons in the book are very cool But that said, Belgian picture books are aimed at slightly older children then they are in general in the UK.

I really would love to see “Een Miljoen Vlinders” (One million butterflies) translated into English. 

Playing by the book: Can you share some of your experience about how children’s publishing is different in the UK and/or US as opposed to Belgium? What sort of thing works well in the UK, but not in Belgium?

Carll Cneut: I feel the biggest difference is the approach towards picture books. In Belgium we have this huge array of different graphic styles, and themes . Heavy subjects are not avoided; subjects which are often unthinkable in other countries (like death, or suicide etc). A lot has to do with the fact that picture books are aimed at slightly older children than they are in the UK. But – and I am not sure about this - also to the fact that books are often used here [in Belgium] to initiate a discussion with children, raising questions for children, rather than simply being bedtime stories.

Playing by the book: When you started doing shows about your work, you surprised yourself with how much you yourself enjoyed them. Can you tell us a little about what you’ll be doing at your Children’s Bookshow event? How does the show work, what do you do with the children who attend? Is there anything you’d like attending children to have done in advance of coming to one of your shows to “get them in the mood”?

Carll Cneut: For the moment I think I will mainly work with the energy of the crowd, not knowing where I will end up. But one thing is sure, the whole show will be worked around three books of mine which I will show and read aloud: Ten Moonstruck Piglets, Willy, One Million Butterflies.

Playing by the book: What are you working on at the moment? Another collaborative work? More costume design? What’s your next book to be published in English and/or any language?

Carll Cneut: At the moment I am working with a young Italian writer on a picture book, called ‘The Golden Birdcage’, a story about a cruel princess who collects birds. As for the English/US market, most likely it will be “One Million Butterflies”, but I do have to stress that that is still unsure for the moment. As for other languages: De Blauwe Vogel (The blue bird) and Fluit zoals je bent (Whistle as you are) are shortly coming up in Italian and French, along with a few other languages. 

Playing by the book: Thank you Carll, I hope you have a great time this year on the Children’s Bookshow.

Find out more about the The Children’s Bookshow here. Anybody can book tickets for any of the events, and schools can also book free workshops with the authors and illustrators taking part in the tour.

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When parents ask me what they can do to get their kids excited about reading, I always encourage them to take their children to see an author or illustrator live. Attending a workshop in a library, or an event at a festival requires relatively little effort and yet the impact it can have on a child can be profound.

Memories of that event can become treasured shared family folklore, and having made a small personal connection direct with the writer/illustrator, the child (in my experience) will build on that and want to read (or have read to them) whatever books they can lay their hands on by the person they’ve seen.

This coming weekend author and illustrator James Mayhew, perhaps most well known for his series of Katie books which explore art and painting, has two events you could attend that are going to be very special. No simple book reading, or Q&A session, oh no! James will be illustrating stories in real time whilst accompanied by a full orchestra. On Saturday the 7th (of July) in Cheltenham, and then Sunday the 8th in Lichfield, James will be retelling some of the stories from the Arabian Nights to the music of Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov.

I recently chatted with James over email about these events and here’s how our conversation went:

Playing by the book: Can you describe what happens in one of your live-illustrating-to-music events? What can the audience except from the event?

James Mayhew: The main thing to expect is a superb orchestra playing beautiful and exciting music! I will be narrating the stories that inspired the composer, and then illustrating them as the music plays. Depending on the venues, I’ll be on stage or near the orchestra, painting at an easel. A camera films this in real time and projects the painting onto one or more screens so all can see. So the pictures grow and changes along with the music and the narrative. Hopefully people will see that classical music doesn’t have to be high brow – these concerts are relaxed, fun, exciting and, I hope, thoroughly entertaining.

Playing by the book: How do these events come together? How do you find the orchestra? How do you decide what music to illustrate to? How do you decide what to illustrate?

James Mayhew: It’s a complicated process. The very first concert was set up through a branch of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, because they saw me telling the story of The Firebird and thought music was the natural progression. Since then the reputation of the concerts has gradually gro

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Hervé Tullet is the creator of some of the most creative, fun picture books I know. Last year he received particular acclaim for Press Here (my review is here), but his activity books are also amazing (we’re particular fans of Doodle Cook). Earlier this week I got to chat with him over email about the writers and illustrators which, over the course of his life so far, have shaped him as an author, an artist and a book creator. Here’s what Hervé Tullet had to say…

The first literary shock was surrealism. I was 16 years old when i discovered through surrealism how deep, how spread out, how close, how much fun creativity and creative people could be.

Let us say my second choice would be Johannes Itten‘s L’Art de la Couleur (The art of colour). As a student and then art director in advertising I read a lot of books about creativity (for example about Marshall McLuhan, and David Ogilvy) but I still have L’Art de la Couleur in my workshop.

With Alain Le Saux and Philippe Corentin I discovered how much fun it could be to read a book with a child (when I got my own child). Unfortunately their books are not widely translated into English, which is such a shame. [Zoe adds: 2 Comments on Hervé Tullet ‘s journey through books, authors and artists who have influenced him, last added: 6/30/2012