Author/Illustrator Posts

My mom’s ancestral home in Shanghai was haunted. Voices were heard in empty corridors.  Certain rooms remained ice-cold through the summer. And there was that time when everything in the ice box rotted simultaneously, even the vegetables purchased from the market that morning. Mama told me the culprits were nine-tailed foxes. For some reason, they were terrified of my grandfather. Shouts of ‘The tiger is coming!’ would fill the house when he came home. In China, tigers represent courageous leaders.

I always loved magical creatures. The folktales Baba told my sister and I at bedtime were full of them. When I learned of the nine-tailed foxes in Shanghai, these magical creatures became my favourites. I read all about them and devised plans to lure one from across the Pacific to haunt to our home in suburban New Jersey.

The Guardians of the New Moon chapter book series draws from a boyhood love of magical creatures and East Asian folklore. Book 1, Ming and Miaow’s Great Race, is based on a legend in which the Jade Emperor held a race and invited every creature on Earth to compete. The first twelve to finish were honoured with a year on the lunar calendar dedicated to them. The version of the Great Race in Book 1 features a nine-tailed fox named Ming and a black-and-white cat named Miaow. Ming is based on my sister Penny and my niece Charlie. Miaow looks like my cat McNulty, but his personality is borrowed from my grumpy boyfriend Brian. (Don’t tell him I said that!) Details from the original legend appear alongside new elements inspired by Baba’s stories.

Book 2, Year of the Rat, sees our heroes on their first mission: to help Su the rat prepare for her lunar year. Subsequent books follow Ming and Miaow with other Great Race winners. Every book contains an epic adventure about friendship, celebrating differences, and loving your authentic self, whether you’re a fiery nine-tailed fox, an introverted cat, or a big strong ox who dreams of being a dancer, instead of the warrior everyone expects him to be.

The magical creatures, unpredictable divinities, and fantastic lands in Guardians of the New Moon are sure to fascinate and inspire young readers while introducing the lunar new year and other East Asian traditions. And maybe – just maybe – the books will persuade a nine-tailed fox or two to visit me at last.

TFOAL SAMPLE CHAPTER

My new picture book Griselda Snook’s Spectacular Books is all about possibilities. It’s about the magical worlds that open wide when we reach for a book or enter a bookshop.

This was exciting to me as a child, and remains so deep into my adulthood. It motivates me as an author – the opportunity both to open up new worlds for young readers and to entertain myself by exploring worlds of my own making.

Of course, when I’m writing, the idea has to be ‘right’. It needs to speak to me in some way, chipping away at an unanswered question or filling me with an infectious sense of What if…? Without this, either writer’s block or boredom will hit. My mind goes into a knot or floats off elsewhere. It’s much the same for children, I think, when they haven’t found the book that’s right for them.

Picture books are primarily stories to be shared. Parents and carers round off a youngster’s day by performing a little theatre show, weaving story-time magic from funny voices, join-in moments and goodnight cuddles. But what about when the child is older and must create this booky magic for themselves?

What if the child doesn’t feel sufficient passion for the story in front of them? What if facts about the Ancient Egyptians just aren’t their thing and they’d rather geek out over monster trucks? Perhaps they need someone to direct them towards a more appropriate book. Or to put their passion into words and say that yes, of course, there’s a book about that too!

The internet helps, of course, but it wasn’t there when I was growing up. I’m so grateful to the patient teachers, librarians and booksellers of my childhood who empowered me to seek out the books I wanted and needed. These opened up not just whole new worlds, but new chapters in my life.

There’s a feeling I still get today when holding a book that feels full of promise. Here we go . . . Buckle up for a whole new chapter! Learning to read is the key that unlocks it all. The key to the world, perhaps. Each and every child has a right to it.

It’s no accident, perhaps, that Griselda Snook’s Spectacular Books begins with our young hero Henry finding a key in the street. And — oh — what a journey he’s in for!

Read an exclusive first chapter of Wintour's Game by Brían Dungan. The first in an action-packed new series, perfect for fans of ARTEMIS FOWL, ALEX RIDER and LOCKWOOD AND CO.

When I was 4 years old, my Aunty Jen, who I adored, asked me to be her bridesmaid. I said no, emphatically no. No-one knew why. No-one could convince me to change my mind. It made no sense to my family. I loved to dress up, loved my aunty.

On the wedding day, my sister wore a beautiful, pink gown, carried a posy of flowers and everyone complimented her. I wasn’t jealous. I knew my decision was right. We got in the car to go home and I was mystified when my sister climbed in. You see, I truly believed at the age of four that if you were someone’s bridesmaid, you then had to go and live with them. I liked my parents and my bedroom, thank you very much.

The memories of that decision, that one moment when my sister got into the car are SO clear; the realization that I could, after all have worn that dress and walked down the aisle following my aunty. I had got it so wrong, but no one had ever thought of course, that I had that thought in my mind!

Ros and her family aged four

Readers of Knowing the Score will see moments of this bridesmaid story in the book. I am fascinated by memories; how we grasp at them, struggle to make the pieces fit. It’s like the feeling when you wake from a dream, madly scrabbling to remember what happened. Gemma has so much of this in her mind – fragments of memories of when she was a five-year-old bridesmaid at her uncle’s wedding, of things that have happened over the years with her mum and the family fall out. She can never quite make those memories fit together but she is determined to find out the truth and try to heal the rift.

Knowing the Score is about healing and forgiveness. It is about courage and determination. In her quest to reunite Gran, Uncle Joe and her Mum, Gemma has to dig deep, ask difficult questions and push to get answers. It is a story driven by this incredible 11-year-old, determined to bring her family back together.

About the time I sadly refused to be a bridesmaid, I also picked up a tennis racket. Tennis was played by all my family. Trips to Wimbledon, summers playing tournaments, winters driving miles to an indoor court – the best of memories.  I’ve played all my life and always wanted to set a book with a tennis background. I won’t ever be a Noel Streatfield but reading Tennis shoes when I was a teenage made me so unbelievably happy. Tennis is for everyone. If one child reads Gemma’s story and gives it a go, picks up a racket, then I will be truly thrilled. If not, maybe someone will rescue a cat and call him something crazy like Carrot Cake – either of those two things would make me a very happy writer indeed.

 

 

 

Read an exclusive first chapter of Something to be Proud of by Anna Zoe Quirke.

Whenever I start illustrating a new book, the process invariably starts with a discussion with the art director – in this case the highly talented Rebecca Essilifie. As this book was the third in the series, we were hitting the ground running in terms of its visual style, but initially we would have discussed colour palettes, layouts and the sense of action each page might require in the context of Karl’s text.

Firstly, to get an idea of the overall composition of each page, I rattle out some rough thumbnail storyboards. I’m not worrying too much about text placement here – although that is lurking at the back of my mind so that I’m not rejigging images too much in the later artwork stages. The storyboard helps give me and Rebecca a sense of the pacing of the visual story: when to use full bleed illustrations and when to break the story down into smaller vignettes, etc. Once we are happy with this, it’s on to the rough artwork.

As the name suggests, they are still just rough black and white sketches. But they are drawn to scale and this is when I liaise with Rebecca to finalise the text placement. I’m continually being reminded to leave some extra room to incorporate any longer translated text in international co-editions – something I always seem to forget!

Nailing down the layout as accurately as possible at the rough stage means that the colour art is essentially a case of tracing, with some inevitable adjustments. I worked as an animator for 15 years before switching to picture books and, as such, I became rather adept at drawing in what was then Adobe Flash (now Animate). To this day I find it the most proficient way to digitally draw my book illustrations, much to the disdain of more qualified artists. However, that’s just the first part of the process. I then export these flat colour files to Photoshop via Illustrator before adding texture and additional shading.

Et voila! A fully realised picture book illustration is then ready to be pored over, amended, tweaked and prodded before it hits the printing presses.

Pages from Time Travellers Adventure Calling PAGES

You can pre-order your copy of The Time Travellers: Adventure Calling here!

In my new picture book, “Becoming Brave,” I share a deeply personal journey about my own childhood and the impact of the pressures to conform. The story revolves around my transformation from a free-spirited, creative child into someone who felt the constant need to be ‘good’ in order to please the adults around me. This shift ultimately led me to abandon my true desires in favour of approval. Meanwhile on the other side of the world there was a boy who had fallen in love with the trumpet and would do anything to keep playing. The turning point in my life came when I met that grownup boy Abram, a jazz musician who showed me what I’d been missing. Following his passing three years later, I realised that I had nothing to lose and gradually started embracing my fears. It took nearly seven years for me to truly understand the concept that it was okay to fail, which is when I penned ‘Becoming Brave.’

Writing a picture book with the messages of love, loss, fear and courage was not my initial goal. It happened serendipitously. My journey towards ‘Becoming Brave’ started when I embarked on a two-week clowning course in 2019, where I got to embody the magic of embracing failure and learned how I could transform it into something else. Following on from this experience I began working through ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron and that led me to scribbling down my initial ‘Becoming Brave’ story. My words remained hidden in one of my journals for months, but eventually, I found them again. The decision to share my story was driven by my desire to encourage people, especially young children, to have confidence in themselves and their creative potential, even in the face of setbacks.

I first shared my story when I had the privilege of speaking to a thousand primary school children at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, sharing my experiences and those of Abram as part of their annual Generation Ladywood project. This project was close to my heart, as I had watched a whole year group grow from reception to Year 6, which was incredibly special. I wanted children to understand that being brave involves acknowledging fear and the possibility of failure, while also reassuring them that they would be okay. I aimed to convey that failure is not something to fear but rather an opportunity for growth and creativity. The message of ‘No Fear!’ became our annual chant, emphasising the importance of courage in the face of adversity and I’m thrilled that I had the chance to share my story with them first. As the story evolved into a children’s picture book, it felt important to emphasise the process of finding courage from within rather than pushing away fear, hence the title ‘Becoming Brave’.

I’m so grateful to Little Tiger for their commitment to bringing this story to life, especially Nikki, Isabel and Emma who were so passionate, patient and collaborative in their approach. Tomekah’s illustrations are beautiful, and it I feel very lucky that she agreed to take on this story as her first picture book. Thank you and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.