Book three

My third book with Andersen Press is publishing next year, but the proofs have already arrived.  I can't show much but I'm sure no-one will mind a tiny sneak peak.

Mo at work

This is Maurice (Maw-reece). He runs the lost property department of a railway station.  His office was inspired by a ticket office I saw at Boat Of Garten railway station in the Highlands, near where I live.

   Isn't it the sweetest?  And perfect for a mouse.

Here's a little close up of the title page.  As you can see, like my first two books,  it is published by those lovely people at Andersen Press.

And finally a little glance at the back cover.  With some exciting bits and bobs I've collected to make some luggage tags of my own.

You'll have to wait a little longer to see the rest.

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Last week I was luckily enough to attend my first ever Edinburgh International Book Festival, which is a bit silly since it's only a year younger than me and I didn't live that far away, but I can now proudly say I've been.

And the sun was out.

I ran two events.  One was a short storytelling session in the Story Box, and the other was in the Baillie Gifford Imagination Lab and required Houdini and a magic suitcase.  Many a magnificent Houdini was drawn by our young audience (and a few adults too) and no-one has yet been turned into a rabbit...well, not permanently.

Only a garish pink strap can keep the magic contained.

Huge thanks to all the lovely children and adults who came to see us, and to the Edinburgh Book Festival staff who were so welcoming.

I'm probably supposed to be doing something...

Many pennies were spent in the Children's bookshop.

Edinburgh Book Festival

I'm really excited to be attending the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the first time this year.  I'll be there on August 24th reading and drawing from my picture books Life and Magic and Pigeon P.I.  If you have little kids and want to read a little mystery and magic then come along.

You can find tickets and information here.

Magical mystery school visits

It's been a very busy week.  I'm trying to finish my third book (it's nearly done!) but I've had a break away from my desk this week to attend the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, to visit Discover Children's Story Centre for the first time (it's marvellous!) and to do a few school events too.  Thank you so much to Paul and Harriet at Andersen Press and Heather at Waterstones Bromley for organising everything, including myself!

Armed with my magical suitcase 'Paddington' and my better half Jon, we've had a great time reading stories, solving mysteries, doing some magic and drawing with over 550 school kids.

Paddington

Discover Children's Story Centre

Did I mention that Jon also doubles up as a magician? He's very handy .

Teaching everyone to draw Houdini.  

Thank you to the staff and children of Manorfield Primary School, and everyone at Discover for organising the event and for giving us a tour of this amazing space.  Seriously, go visit.

Southborough Primary School

Showing some character sketches to some seriously well behaved children.

Stillness Infant School

More drawing and a mic because I'm quiet as a mouse.


Thank you so much to all the school staff and children, we had such a great time.

The Waterstones Children's Book Prize

The shortlisted authors and illustrators with children's laureate Chris Riddell.

A highlight

Meeting Matt Roberston, Francesca Sanna and Fabi Santiago.  If you combine all four of us we have 20/20 vision!

Proof I was there.

Huge congratulations to Illustrated Books winner Lizzy Stewart, Older Fiction Winner Patrice Lawrence and overall winner Kiran Millwood Hargrave.  And thanks to Waterstones for such a great evening.

Now, back to book three...

The Klaus Flugge Prize

I am very excited to announce that Life Is Magic has been longlisted for The Klaus Flugge Prize! Now in its second year, the Klaus Flugge Prize recognises and celebrates newcomers to children's book illustration, and this year's long list features so many illustrators whose work I love.  

You can read more about the prize and the full long list here.  Congratulations everyone!

World Book Day/Pigeon P.I.

My second picture book Pigeon P.I. is published today in hardback, hooray!

I've a done a few making-of blogs.  You can read here about the cover and here about the book in general.

As if that wasn't enough it's also World Book Day.  Here's a little pic I adapted from the back cover of Pigeon P.I. to celebrate

And finally, this is what the Life is Magic bunnies think

Last year I celebrated World Book Day by reading Life Is Magic in front of a terrifying number of children, this year I'm at home trying to finish book three.  It's almost done, and top secret for now...

Pigeon P.I. cover

My second picture book is publishing this week so here's a post about how the front cover was made.  Don't worry, I've spared you the gazillion colour choice screenshots I took!

Back covers are one of my favourite parts of a book.  They have all the fun of the front cover with none of the responsibility.  I usually leave the back cover until the very end and so far they've always been great fun to do.

The back cover means more room for silly jokes and shenanigans.  

For me, the front cover is the hardest part of any book I make because it's the first thing that people see.  It has to invite readers in and tell them a little bit about what they'll get inside but not everything.   You want people to want to pick it up, to be able to see it across a room and equally to be able to read it when it's tiny on their computer screen.   This is probably the part of the book that my art director and I spend most time discussing, sending ideas back and forth, usually over a period of a few days, refining as we go. 

This was an early idea we had but it never made it any further.  We wanted to make sure we introduced both Murray and Vee (pigeon and canary respectively) and also had a little bit of a narrative.  I particularly liked how Vee's shadow put her on the poster beside Murray, foreshadowing things to come.  I forget why we chose not to use it, but I still like it.

Here are some sketch ideas.  I tend to send every little doodle.  I find that drawings I'm not sure about can often spark ideas in other people and we can end up using them for something somewhere.

This was the sketch we thought worked best as an idea.

This image made its way onto the case cover beneath the dust jacket.

Some more ideas for the cover, case cover and a few fonts I liked.


We tweaked the image a few more times to make it into this.  We wanted to keep the noir feel and the implication of danger whilst showing through Vee that this would also be a really fun, silly book too.

The hardest part of this cover was the font.  Compared to Life Is Magic this looked like quite a simple book lettering-wise.  But with five separate character fonts, the background posters and adverts plus my simple* endpapers, there ended up being a lot more. 

(*My endpapers were simple.  I wrote this in an email to my editor.  I forget how simple they were, but at some point I had a great idea which turned out beautifully and was by no means simple after all.)

Anyway, the cover went through several rounds of hand-lettering.  I do a lot of typography for someone who is still very much learning as I go, so my way in is a little like that part in The Shining where Jack Nicholson is typing 'All work and no play make Jack a dull boy' over and over.  Like so...

Once I see something I like I'll do my best to refine it.  We actually settled on a font, a perfectly nice one, but decided it wasn't strong enough.

Back to the drawing board one more time and we cracked it.  I'm so glad we re-did it.  The final lettering turned out really nicely, especially with the shiny gold foil finish.

So shiny!

Pigeon P.I. publishes on March 2nd.

You can read more about the making of it here