Callum's Incredible Construction Kit

Previewed at Edinburgh last month, my new picture book Callum's Incredible Construction Kit illustrated by Ben Mantle, has just come out in both hardback and paperback!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the book is a bit of milestone for me, as it’s the 50th I’ve had published. You can get an idea of what it’s about (and watch me making a fool of myself) by watching the video below.

I converted my kitchen into a makeshift studio for a day to shoot
this and a couple of other videos (including the Flick-Flack video
in the previous post). I got a pop-up blue/green screen for my
birthday last year and was able to light it fairly well by
repositioning the kitchen spotlights. Fortunately my son, Max,
was on hand to help me with the “complex special effects sequence”
(ie: swapping over the Duplo models while I froze in place).

The book was borne out of my childhood enthusiasm for Lego and other construction kits and was also inspired by one of my favourite picture books, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson.  That book is about a boy whose drawings come to life on the page. I wanted to write a story in which another child, Callum, could do something similar, but in three dimensions, in the real world.

You can read more about how I came to write the book and why it took six years to get into print on this page of my web site.