MARVELLOUS MACHINES: Technology in picture book illustration

This post was originally published on Picture Book Den, a blog about picture books by picture book authors and illustrators.

Understanding how it all fits together is no mean feat.
One of David Parkins's techtastic illustrations for Eileen Browne's story, No Problem.

I’m a bit of a technophile and several of my picture books, such as Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit and Tom’s Clockwork Dragon have a technological theme. I’d like to think that my enthusiasm for technology comes across in my writing, but the writing only tells half the story in a picture book, the other half being told by the illustrations.

Some of the fundamentally flawed bicycle
drawings from Rebecca Lawson’s study

To draw a machine or mechanism well, an illustrator has to understand how it’s put together and operates. This cognitive skill doesn’t always go hand in hand with artistic ability and is relatively uncommon, not just among illustrators, but among the population as a whole.

Cognitive psychologist Rebecca Lawson demonstrated this last point with a series of experiments in which subjects were asked to either draw or complete a drawing of a bicycle. The bicycle is a simple machine that most people will have been familiar with from an early age and even non-cyclists encounter them regularly. While many people may think that they understand how a bicycle is put together, Lawson’s experiments (which she later published as a paper) show that relatively few people are able to draw one from memory without making fundamental errors.

Having established how rare this ability is, here are 10 techtastic picture book illustrators who excel at drawing machines.


You can see every nut, bolt and washer in David Parkins’s wonderful illustrations for No Problem, written by Eileen Browne. This book is one of my all-time favourite picture books about technology and was a huge bedtime favourite of my son’s.

The extraordinary Chris Riddell seems to excel at drawing everything and technology is no exception. The robots that inhabit Wendel’s Workshop demonstrate how technically detailed illustrations can also be brimming with character.

Mark Oliver, who created Monster’s - An Owner’s Guide with me, cites his engineer father as an inspiration for much of his work. Mark once told me that the key to illustrating technology well is that, “it has to look like it could actually work.”

Jonny Duddle’s The King of Space is full of superbly drawn spaceships and robots. Rex, the book’s anti-hero, lives on a farm which may be why the huge “warbot” he constructs looks like it’s made from tractor parts.

Ted Dewan’s re-telling of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice replaces magic with technology, and the work-shy human apprentice with an equally work-shy robot.

Although some of Callum’s creations in Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit are huge, Ben Mantle’s brilliantly detailed illustrations make it clear that they are constructed from pieces that a child could handle and assemble on his own.

William Bee’s illustrations for And the Train Goes are packed with the sort of wonderful technical detail that’s rarely found in picture books for the very young.

While cross sections are more commonly found in non-fiction, Steve Cox’s design for the crocodile submarine in our picture book The Treasure of Captain Claw was so stunning that publisher Orchard gave Steve this huge gatefold to show it off. Click here to see a much larger version in Steve's Flickr album.

No list of techtastic illustrators is complete, without the grandaddy of them all, Heath Robinson. This illustration is from Railway Ribaldry, published for the centenary of the Great Western Railway in 1935.

And finally, I couldn’t resist sneaking in an illustration from The Clockwork Dragon (a reworking of Tom’s Clockwork Dragon), my forthcoming picture book with Elys Dolan. Elys is a self-confessed armour nut, and this certainly shows in her splendid illustrations of the eponymous dragon, which is made from recycled arms and armour.

Do you have a favourite picture book featuring marvellous machinery that I haven’t mentioned? If so, tell me about it in the comment box below.

Callum's Incredible Construction Kit US fan site

In April this year I made a virtual visit to the 1st Graders at Tuckahoe Common School in New York State. In preparation for the visit, teacher Laurie Verdeschi borrowed 15 of my books from the library. The children had some of the books read to them and read some to each other. Then they voted on which was their favourite.

My virtual visit with the 1st Graders at Tuckahoe Common School.
I read them The Princess and the Pig before they told me the results of their vote. 

The children revealed the results of the vote to me during the virtual visit. The runaway winner was Callum's Incredible Construction Kit illustrated by Ben Mantle. At the end of the visit, several of the children came to the camera, one after the other, to enthuse about their favourite Callum creations. Ben's illustrations of the T-Rex and the big fold-out picture of Callum's house rebuilt with construction kit (shown below) were particularly popular.

I told the children that, while I was delighted that the book had won, I was also quite surprised as the book didn't have a US publisher, so I would not have expected them to have come across it.

I didn't think any more of it, until today when Laurie sent me this email:

Hi Jonathan

It's been awhile since our 1st graders Skyped with you, but I recall it as a highlight of last year. As we discussed, our students love Callum's Incredible Construction Kit. After speaking with you and finding out that Callum doesn't have an American publisher, they wrote letters and drew pictures for a CICK Fan Club website. I finally scanned a selection of their work and put together a small website.

https://sites.google.com/site/officialuscickfanclub/

I hope you enjoy it and maybe you'd even like to direct publishers to it!

Thanks again!

Laurie Verdeschi

The fan site the children created.

The slideshow on the site features some wonderful drawings of Callum's inventions …

Two of the children's drawings of Callum's house

… and a collection of the children's letters, most of which are addressed to US publishers asking them to publish the book.

Surely only the most hard-hearted publisher could resist these children's letters!

So if you're a US publisher, looking for a picture book with proven appeal to discerning US 1st Graders, look no further. I'm sure Callum's UK publisher, Egmont, would love to hear from you. Don't all run at once!

Find out more about this book on my web site

Callum’s Incredible Book Award (Updated)

I was at Bishop Stortford College in Hertfordshire for their annual picture book award ceremony this week. This year’s award was voted for by 1,324 children from the College and other local schools and there were nine books on the shortlist including Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit by myself and Ben Mantle. 

Here’s Ben and myself

And this is Ben with Amy Fletcher and Jo Hardacre
from Callum’s publisher, Egmont

There was an impressive turnout of shortlisted authors and illustrators; Will Buckingham, Rebecca Cobb, Atinuke, Jo Hodgkinson, Charlotte Middleton, Jackie Morris and Emily Gravett all attended along with Ben and myself. It was the first time Ben and I had met, so it was good to get to know him a little as well as all the other authors and illustrators. The current Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson, was also there to present the award and one of the highlights of my day was spending a some time chatting to her.

Here we are with all the other authors and illustrators

All the other authors and illustrators had been asked to give a short speech about our books. Authors and illustrators are not necessarily natural public speakers and many of us, including myself, were a little nervous about doing so. Julia Donaldson set the bar high with an introductory speech about her love of picture books, which seemed very natural and spontaneous. However the rest of us acquitted ourselves well and it was lovely hearing everyone talking about their books.

Ben used some of his illustrations in his talk (Photo: Ian Taylor)

 I appear to be using an invisible pneumatic drill in mine. (Photo: Ian Taylor)

After the speeches, Julia opened the envelope to announce the three runners up and the winner, which, to my and Ben’s delight, turned out to be Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit!

Julia presenting Ben and I with the award. (Photo: Ian Taylor)

It’s always nice to receive a book award, especially one that’s voted for by children, but when Ben and I accepted the trophy I explained that I was especially pleased that this particular book had proved so popular as I’d been sending it to publishers for three years before it was finally accepted by Egmont. Winning a children's vote like this made me feel it had been worth all the effort!

Here we are with teacher Simon Bailey who did a Callum-inspired

illustration to mark the event. (Photo: Ian Taylor)

And here’s the trophy itself!

It was a great day, so I'd like to say a BIG THANK YOU to the organisers for short-listing our book and organising such a lovely event. And an EVEN BIGGER THANK YOU to all the children that voted for Callum!

Seven Stories Callum Events and Bringing Down the Moon Signings

Here’s news of a couple of events I have coming up in the next few months.

Seven Stories National Centre for Children’s Books,
Newcastle upon Tyne, 19th January 2013

I’ll be doing two events at Seven Stories featuring Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit. It’s my first trip to the centre, which I’ve been meaning to visit since it opened.

As well as reading the book, I’ll be talking about my own love of building things and how this has influenced many of my stories. At the end of each event, children will be able to make and decorate a simple Callum pop-up to take away with them.

Click here to book tickets for the event at the Seven Stories website, where you can also find out about the other wonderful exhibitions and activities that the centre has to offer. The centre takes up seven storeys of a converted Victorian mill, giving rise to its punning title.

Click here to find out more about Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit.


Pleasance Theatre, Islington, 15th December 2012

Before that, I’m going down to London to see Peaceful Lion Productions' new stage show of Bringing Down the Moon (see last blog post) and will be signing books after the 11.00am and 1.00pm performances on 15th December.  So come along and say hello!

Tickets are still available for both these performances as I write this, but other performances have already sold out, so CLICK HERE TO BOOK now if you'd like to see the show before having your book signed.

Callum’s Incredible TV Series

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve just signed a deal for a TV series of my latest picture book Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit.

It’s far more difficult to get a TV series to screen than to get a book into print, so it may come to nothing (which is what happened to the TV deal I had for Dinosaurs After Dark a few years ago) but it’s still an exciting prospect.

The series is being developed by The Foundation, the UK production company who make Waybuloo, Dani’s House and many other children's programmes. The Foundation is also behind the forthcoming Quick Quack Duck TV series that I blogged about earlier in the year and they intend to make the Callum series in a similar 3D computer-animated style.

The company expressed a very early interest in adapting Callum for TV and I first met with Director Vanessa Hill back in May, four months before the book had even been published. Vanessa asked me to get involved with the development of the series, which is already well underway and the company are about to start work on an animation sample. TV is a very different medium to picture books, with it’s own conventions and restrictions but I’m enjoying getting to grips with the new challenges that it presents.

The TV version of Callum will look distinctly different to the picture book version, but one of the reasons I’ve been asked to get involved is to ensure that the TV version retains the elements that are central to the book’s appeal: Callum’s can-do attitude and resourcefulness and plenty of cool construction kit creations!

Even if everything goes swimmingly, the series won’t air until 2015 at the earliest - so don’t hold your breath ...

Geekzine Interview and Twitter news

If you’ve ever met me and made the mistake of mentioning the subject of “boys not liking books”, I’ll probably have subjected you to my sermon on how many of the key ingredients that appeal to boys are excluded from most picture books and how this results in boys turning to other mediums such as comics, TV and video games where these key ingredients are enthusiastically embraced. I’ll spare you the full sermon here (or I’ll be typing all night), but one of the things I’ve realised since I’ve started writing boy-friendly picture books that include these missing ingredients is that many girls also find them appealing. 

Nevertheless, I was still surprised to see a two-year-old girl and her parents (with no older brother) at my Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit event at Edinburgh last month. The event was advertised for ages five to eight and nearly all of the children attending were boys. At the signing afterwards I discovered she was there because her favourite book was Monsters: An Owner's Guide (again, not the sort of book you'd expect a two-year-old girl to be fond of) which she’d brought along for me to sign.

It turned out that her dad, Andy, was the editor of Geekzine, the Edinburgh based website and fanzine, which went a long way to explaining his daughter’s unconventional taste in picture books!

I’ve since done an interview with Geekzine, which you can find here.

On an unrelated note, I’ve just joined Twitter. You can follow me on @ScribbleStreet or find my profile page here. Among other things, I’ll be tweeting to say when I’ve added a new entry to this blog.

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.

CALLUM'S INCREDIBLE CONSTRUCTION KIT • Edinburgh Event and Flick-Flack

I’ve just got back from the Edinburgh International Book Festival where I did an event previewing my forthcoming picture book Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit illustrated by Ben Mantle. Although I’ve been to Edinburgh at festival time before, this was my first time at the Book Festival, as either a visitor or a participant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As well as reading the book, I talked about my lifelong love of building things and how this has influenced many of my stories. Edinburgh proved to be an ideal place to launch a book about a boy called Callum (a Scottish name meaning dove) and I met two Callums at the signing afterwards. Thanks to them and everyone else that came along.

Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit is published
by Egmont and their Publishing Director, Melissa
Fairley, came along to lend a hand at the event. 

All of the children attending took away a Callum Flick-Flack, an intriguing piece of paper-engineering I’d created especially as a souvenir of the event.
Having spent some time designing it, I thought I should share it with a wider audience, so you can click here to download a smaller print out and make version of the Flick-Flack then watch the video below for detailed instructions on how to make it.

Click here to find out more about Callum's Incredible Construction Kit.

Edinburgh event tickets now available

I’m delighted to say that I’ve been asked to do an event at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. It’s my first time at the Festival and I am just doing one event on Wednesday 15th August.

I’ll be talking about my forthcoming picture book, Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit, illustrated by Ben Mantle. It's about a boy who loves building things and, as well as reading the book, I’ll be talking about my own love of building things and how this has influenced many of my stories. At the end of the event, children will be able to make and decorate a simple Callum pop-up to take away with them.

Click here to book tickets for the event (and see my alarmingly cropped photo) at the Festival’s website, where you can also find out about the many other authors and illustrators attending.

Callum’s Incredible Construction Kit will be the 50th book I’ve had published, the first being Doohickey and the Robot, back in 1999. The book is not out until 3rd September, but I’ve just received a couple of advance copies and they look terrific.

And here’s a sneak preview of one of the spreads.