PIGS MIGHT FLY! New Paperback Edition

Around this time last year illustrator Rebecca Harry and I published a set of print-on-demand editions of our Ruby the Duckling books after the original editions went out of print. I'm pleased to announce that Pigs Might Fly!, one of my picture books with illustrator Steve Cox which recently went out of print, has just been re-published in the same format.

The new square-format, print-on-demand edition.

I was particularly keen to get Pigs Might Fly! in print again as it's one of my most popular books to read on school visits and its production is the focus of the How a Picture Book is Made presentation I do with Year 5 and 6 classes.

This slide from my How a Picture Book is Made schools presentation shows some of the character
designs Steve came up with before arriving at the final characters of Waldo, Woody and Wilbur.

The book's popularity with young readers was also demonstrated when it won the “Books for Younger Children” category at the 2006 Red House Children’s Book Awards, a national children's vote awards organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups.

Steve and I with my son and daughter and a very shiny trophy
at the 2006 Red House Children’s Book Awards.

The new edition has different page proportions to the original and has been re-typset using open source fonts. One of the advantages of having to re-work the layouts was that it gave us the opportunity to produce a 'directors cut' version of the book which incorporates a few improvements. For example: the original version had no imprints page, so the imprints details were printed on the opening spread. This gave the story a rather awkward start, so we created a new imprints/title spread for the new edition and reworked the opening text to cover both sides of the opening spread.

While the original edition (top) had the imprint details printed on the opening spread,
the new edition (bottom) has the imprints details on a new imprints/title spread.

Most of the other changes were done in response to my experience of reading the book aloud in schools and are less easy to spot. So fans of the book can rest assured that the Big Bad Wolf is just as conniving as he was in the original edition …

… and Wilbur just as indomitable!

Here's what reviewers said about the book when it was originally published.

"A super book with a good storyline, amusingly told and wonderfully illustrated … a book children will want to look at again and again."

BOOKS FOR KEEPS

"Bright, breezy and fun with action on every page."

CAROUSEL

You can find out more about the book on this page of my website and download and print the new Spot the Difference activity sheet by clicking on the image below.

Find out more about the book on my website

WHAT LIES WITHIN: Cross sections and cutaways in picture books.

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

Two types of pictures that were guaranteed to hold my attention as a child were cross sections and cutaways. These revealing illustrations offered readers a god-like omniscience allowing them to peek at things that were usually hidden and imparting an understanding of how individual parts or spaces fitted together to form a more complex whole.

If you’re not clear on what the difference is, a cross section is a drawing which shows the view revealed by an imaginary straight line slice through an object, while a cutaway is a drawing in which some external parts have been removed (or ‘cut away’) to reveal the interior. Many of the drawings featured in “cross section” books are actually cutaways.

One illustrator who did a great deal to popularise cutaways was Leslie Ashwell Wood. Although perhaps best know for the hundreds of cutaways he created for the Eagle comic in the 1950s and 60s, Wood also produced a series of Inside Information books including this one featuring cutaways of space craft, which I spent many hours poring over as a child.

Inside Information on Space Travel was part of a series of twelve
Inside Information cutaway books illustrated by Leslie Ashwell Wood 

There was a quite a craze for cross sections and cutaway books in the 1990s, perhaps most notably the Incredible Cross Section series illustrated by Stephen Biesty.

Stephen Biesty’s intricately detailed exploded cutaway through the Colosseum from
Rome in Spectacular Cross-Section with text by Andrew Solway.  

While Biesty’s drawings revealed the hidden intricacies of the real world, past and present, other illustrators began to produce equally detailed cross sections and cutaways based on the fictional worlds of films and TV shows. In 1998 Dorling Kindersley published Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections, illustrated by Hans Jensen and Richard Chasemore and written by David West Reynolds. 

Hans Jenssen’s Millennium Falcon cutaway from Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections.

Since then everything from the Thunderbirds' rescue craft to Wallace and Gromit’s motorbike and sidecar has been laid bare in cutaway or cross section form.

An amusing variation on the genre is Alan Snow’s How Things Really Work series which purports to show the mechanical interior workings of familiar creatures.

 A cross section though a Stegosaurus from Alan Snow’s How Dinosuars Really Work. 

Although some of the books featured above contain fictional content, none of them are story books, so I thought I’d finish off by looking at some picture books that incorporate cross-sections into a narrative.

Now that you know what a fan I am, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that cross sections and cutaways occasionally pop up in the picture books I've written, such as this wonderfully detailed crocodile-submarine gatefold that Steve Cox created for The Treasure of Captain Claw.

Captain Claw's crocodile-like submarine (click here to see a larger version).

Chris Riddell’s cutaway drawing for Pirate Diary, written by Richard Platt, allows readers to explore the ship on which the story is set … 

… as does this Noah’s Ark cross section (made from plasticine!) by Barbara Reid for her picture book Two By Two.



But no post about cross sections and cutaways in picture books would be complete without a mention of the two Full Moon books – Full Moon Soup and Full Moon Afloat – by Alistair Graham. These are both wordless picture books in which the story is told in a sequence of twelve comically detailed cross sections populated by a cast of increasingly weird and wonderful characters. In Full Moon Soup the eponymous magical potion results in a Fawlty-Towers-like hotel going from this at the start of the book … 

… to this by the end. 

I hope you've enjoyed this 'slice' of some of my favourite picture book cross sections and cutaways. If you have any favourites of your own, I’d love to hear about them in the comments box below. 

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The submarine cross section featured above is taken from

The Treasure of Captain Claw, illustrated by Steve Cox and published by Orchard Books.

Find out more about The Treasure of Captain Claw on my web site

TO BOLDY GO: Picture books in space

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

As someone who grew up at the time of the Apollo Missions I’ve always found the idea of space travel hugely appealing and had a particular interest in stories that are set in space.

I've pitched several space-set stories to publishers over the years. However, while I’ve had some success getting space-set chapter fiction published …

The Captain Comet chapter fiction books illustrated by Andy Parker are set in space.

… none of the space-set picture books I’ve pitched have ever made it into print.

An art sample by illustrator Steve Cox for Invasion of the Botty Snatchers,
an unpublished space-set picture book we developed together.

Of course this could be because none of them were any good, but when another of my space-set picture book ideas was turned down last year, the publisher told me that one of the reasons was that, “picture books set in space generally don’t sell.”

If this is true, then I think it shows that the picture book market is currently catering to the tastes of a demographic that is relatively narrow compared to its potential readership. There are plenty of picture book age children that are interested in stories set in space. However these children are currently having this appetite fed by TV shows and films rather than books. My son and several of his friends were obsessed with the original U certificate Star Wars trilogy from the age of four and when I went to see the new Star Wars film over Christmas, I was struck by how many parents had brought small children to see it, despite its 12 certificate rating.

If publishers want to show these children that picture books are every bit as capable of matching the appeal of their favourite films and TV shows, they might consider “boldly going” into space a little more often. And I do mean “boldly”; it’s not just the setting that’s important. There is a market for gentler picture book stories set in space, but such books will not cut it with young readers with an appetite for dogfights and death stars. These children need picture books that can match the dastardly villainy, thrillingly perilous predicaments and sophisticated craft and weaponry evident in films like Star Wars.

Here are three space-set books that are a good deal “bolder” than most.

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The King of Space written and Illustrated by Jonny Duddle is one of the best picture books of the last ten years and shamefully under-recognised by reviewers and awards judges alike. It’s a brilliantly illustrated, tech-tastic, action packed epic, filled with battling spaceships, menacing robots and a pint-sized megalomaniac.

The hardback edition comes with a dust-cover that unfolds to make this awesome poster of a 'warbot'.

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Nuts in Space written and illustrated by Elys Dolan is a madcap space epic that's brimful of comic references to both Star Wars and Star Trek. Charged with transporting “The Lost Nuts of Legend” across the galaxy, the crew of Forest Fleet’s finest starship encounter a mischievous menagerie of creatures from little green men to ravenous Ewok-like bears, before falling into the clutches of Daft Monkey and his legion of simian stormtroopers.

The book is full of amusing in-jokes for sci-fi fans young and old, such as this encounter between Daft Monkey and Commander Moose.

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Mungo and the Spiders from Space written by Timothy Knapman, illustrated by Adam Stower is part of an excellent series of Mungo stories in which Mungo, the young hero, enters the world of a favourite bedtime book. In this story it's a comic book adventure featuring a Dan-Dare-like space hero called Captain Galacticus.

Galacticus and Mungo join forces to thwart the villainous, Dr Frankenstinker, the "maddest scientist on Mercury".

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Can you recommend any other picture books that "boldly go" into space? If so, I'd love to hear about them in the comments box below.

Find out more about the
Captain Comet chapter fiction books
on my web site

Two heads are better than one: The benefits of early author-illustrator collaboration

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

I mentioned in a post earlier this year that, although people often assume that picture book authors and illustrators work closely together, it’s not unusual for the author and illustrator to have no direct contact, with the book’s creation being co-ordinated via the publisher.

One of my Dutch publishers told me that Dutch authors and illustrators regularly get together with the publisher during a picture book’s production to discuss how the project is progressing. However, if my own experience is anything to go by, regular meetings like this are not the norm in the UK. I’d been writing picture books for ten years before a publisher, Puffin, invited me to get together with illustrator Steve Cox to look at some of Steve’s initial concept sketches for our picture book Pigs Might Fly and discuss how it might be illustrated. Before then, I’d only met two illustrators I’d done a book with and spoken to a couple more on the phone, and this was always after the project was completed.

One reason for this lack of direct contact is that many picture book publishers like to moderate all communication between a book's author and illustrator. In the conventional UK set-up, an author gives any comments or ideas they might have regarding the illustrations to an editor, who then (if they agree with them) passes them on to the illustrator (sometimes via the book's designer). This is obviously a rather slow method of communication and and misinterpretations can occur as the message is passed along the chain. Another disadvantage of the conventional set-up is that while the author has some influence over how the book is illustrated, the illustrator has relatively little influence over how the book is written, the story having been largely hammered out before they are on board.

The line of communication between author and illustrator is often indirect.
(Image taken from my "How a book is Made" school presentations)

When I first started creating picture books I'd intended to both write and illustrate and was in the habit of developing ideas simultaneously in both text and illustration. Although my illustration has largely fallen by the wayside, I still think of stories visually as much as verbally. I'll often get a story idea from looking at an image or conceive a story outline as a series of illustrations. So I've always thought that the conventional set-up, with its lack of direct interaction between author and illustrator, is less than ideal. Fortunately, I've been able to team up with several sympathetic illustrators who have been happy to exchange ideas at an early stage and several of my more recent picture books have been developed in a far more collaborative way.

After Mark Oliver had illustrated my text for Tom’s Clockwork Dragon, he and I were both keen to do another picture book together. So rather than leave it to chance, I asked Mark if there was anything he’d particularly like to illustrate. Mark sent me a list of ideas, one of which – a mechanical monster manual – became Monsters: An Owner’s Guide. We developed the idea between us and when we had a draft of the text and some concept art that we were both happy with, we offered it as a joint project to publishers. Thankfully, Macmillan accepted it and subsequently took Aliens: An Owner’s Guide as a follow-up.

Some of Mark Oliver's early concept art for Monsters: An Owner's Guide

Since then, I’ve worked on several stories where the illustrator has been involved from the initial concept stage and has often provided the initial inspiration. The Treasure of Captain Claw was written in answer to Steve Cox’s wish to illustrate a submarine story and my latest picture book, The Silver Serpent Cup, was written in response to a set of outlandish vehicle models that Ed Eaves had offered as a possible source of inspiration. 

The Silver Serpent Cup and some of the outlandish vehicle models, made by Ed Eaves, that inspired it.

Not all of the author-illustrator collaborations I’ve worked on have made it into print – I wrote two unpublished stories with the late Vanessa Cabban – but I’ve always enjoyed working with the illustrator to create them. And I suspect that, having helped shape the initial concept, the illustrators I’ve created these books with have felt a little more attached to these projects and may have been prepared to lavish a little extra care and attention on them.

Some of Vanessa Cabban's "Clara and Bertie" character sketches from an unpublished project we developed together.

There’s a synergy when text and illustration work well together in a picture book. This happens naturally when the same person is both writing and illustrating, but if the author and illustrator are two different people, such a synergy can be a lot easier to achieve if they get together early on to exchange ideas. I’d certainly recommend it!

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My latest collaborative picture book is The Silver Serpent Cup illustrated by Ed Eaves and published by Oxford University Press.

Drawing the anthropomorphic line: how human should your characters be?

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

Drawing the anthropomorphic line 

The “Pig Tales” session I often do on my school and library visits features three picture books I’ve written about pigs. In between reading the three stories I explain that one of the things that makes them different from each other is how much anthropomorphism they use. I explain what this ridiculously long word means and why it’s such a useful tool for storytellers.

The dictionary definition of anthropomorphism is “the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.” I tell the children that anthropomorphism is simply “making something more like a person.”

Many of mankind’s oldest stories come from Africa, the birthplace of the human race. In the African stories of Anansi the spider, Anansi thinks and speaks like a human and in some of the stories he takes on human form.

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti by Gerald McDermott

Storytellers have been using anthropomorphism – making animals think, talk and look like humans – ever since.

Lucy Cousins's Maisy Mouse

And it’s not just animals – you can anthropomorphise almost anything … 

… vegetables …

… vehicles …

… even household appliances!

One reason storytellers use anthropomorphism is because people usually find characters more appealing if they think they are like them. Anthropomorphising an animal or even a toaster makes us care about what happens to them.

Anthropomorphism is not an either-or option; you can vary the amount you use. And, if you are creating a picture book, it’s worth taking the time to get the balance just right in both text and illustrations.

You can use varying amounts of anthropomorphism

My picture book story Pigs Might Fly is a sequel to the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs. The pigs in my story build and fly aeroplanes, so they are fully anthropomorphic – the story could just as well be about three humans. This was reflected in some of illustrator Steve Cox’s first character sketches for the book, where the pigs are fully clothed and one of them is carrying a phone and a laptop. However, the publisher felt that these characters didn’t have quite the right appeal, and the character designs that eventually appeared in the book wore less clothing and were more recognisably pig-like.

Some of Steve Cox's character sketches for Pigs Might Fly:
Early, fully-anthropomorphic characters on the left and final characters on the right.

The pig in The Pig’s Knickers lives outdoors on a farm and – before the events of the story – would not usually wear clothing. However I made him talk, think and feel like a human in the text and Vanessa Cabban’s illustrations show him dancing on his hind legs and picking things up with his front trotters. As such, he’s a good example of a semi-anthropomorphic character.

One of Vanessa Cabban's illustrations for The Pig's Knickers

The Princess and the Pig is the story of a piglet that gets switched at birth and is brought up as a princess in the mistaken belief that she has been bewitched. The running joke in the story is that, while the reader knows that Princess Priscilla is nothing more than an ordinary pig, the characters in the story don’t and spend all their time trying to make her look and behave like a human. When I first started thinking about the story I considered making Priscilla a little anthropomorphic, but in the end I decided that the story would be much funnier if I didn’t anthropomorphise her at all.

One of Poly Bernatene's spreads for The Princess and the Pig

So the next time you’re writing a story with animal* characters, take a moment to think about where’s the best place to draw your anthropomorphic line!

*Or vegetables or vehicles or household appliances!

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My latest semi-anthropomorphic picture book is A Spot of Bother illustrated by Vanessa Cabban and published by Walker Books.