Leopardness and crocodilehood - Anne Rooney

There's a lot of very beautiful non-fiction books around at the moment; you will definitely be able to choose something fantastic as a Christmas gift for any small readers you know. What makes them beautiful is largely the illustrations. In fiction, pictures serve the demands of the story, which has its own challenges, but in non-fiction they do a harder job. They negotiate between demands that often pull in different directions: mediating objective reality, highlighting the message the text is focusing on and at the same time acknowledging what we don't yet know.

In the 1990s, Dorling Kindersley reset the bar for illustrated non-fiction with its iconic design of text wrapped around cut-out, high quality photos against a white background. It was the age of digital photography and photo-editing and the world was their oyster. We could show child readers exactly what something looks like in real, including an oyster.

DK Eyewitness Ocean

Close on the heels of photography came CGI: even things that we can't actually photographed could be presented as though they had actually been photographed. It gave us images of the inside of the Earth, the surface of distant planets and dinosaurs. But hang on. Is this really legitimate? An adult will know the parameters: we don't have photos of the inside of a volcano and never could have; we don't have photos of extinct dinosaurs and never could have. A child doesn't know how much we know, how much we can say with some degree of confidence will look right in these images, and how much is artistic licence. Where does non-fiction stop and fiction begin in an image like this CGI terror bird fighting wolves?

Titanis v. wolves, National Geographic

Today, photos are two-million-a-penny and you can see a video on YouTube of anything you can imagine, either real or CGI'd. That kind of realism has rather lost its grabbiness: unless the image is truly stunning, our attention slides over it. Kids are not easily impressed. On cue, illustrated non-fiction has rediscovered the power of illustration. Here things get interesting. Non-fiction is generally thought to be in the business of communicating the truth, showing facts (or at least consensus reality). Personally, I think its true business is getting readers to think about and question the truth and facts: this is what we think is true; why do we think this? how did we discover it? how certain is it? how could we test it? is there another explanation? The move towards illustration can support this much better than photography. But it's not a clear split, of course.

Some facts look indisputable. A chameleon has two toe: you can see them in a photo. Pretty clear, right?

No, a chameleon has five toes, but they are fused in two groups. You can see from the skeleton. Pretty clear, right?

Let's try that one again: how many toes does a chameleon have? It depends on how you define 'toes'.

Photography often closes off questions. A photograph has authority. CGI can be worse: it seems to have authority, but it can present as 'true' something that is our best-informed imagining (or even an ill-informed imagining, if the artist hasn't done their research). It has its uses.

These images are stills from a CGI rendering of the destruction of Pompeii by the volcano Vesuvius in AD79. It's pretty accurate in that we know exactly the behaviour of this type of volcano, the layout of Pompeii and the destruction evident in the ruins.

Video of destruction of Pompeii

Photorealism here makes it more immediate, more shocking — it packs a punch. We can imagine the terror of being caught in this.





On the other hand, CGI is obliged to visualize everything in a scene, even if it's not known — like the colour of a terror bird.

Artwork can highlight features in a way that photos can't. Photos are democratic: every feature gets the same shot at being noticed. Artwork comes into its own for creating an impression, or highlighting an aspect that is possibly lost in a photo. Here's an image from Shackleton's Journey (William Grill, Flying Eye, 2014):

Can you imagine an image that could convey the vast, bleak loneliness of Antarctica better than this? Antarctica not as it is now, with its colonies of researchers, but Antarctica when you are the only humans? No photo could give this view, or this sense of vulnerability.

Artwork can convey uncertainty, too. Here's an image from Dinosaur Atlas (illustrated by James Gilleard, Lonely Planet, 2017):

Here, the non-realistic style underlines the contingency of the information it contains. We know the shape and type of this dinosaur (Tuojongosarus), but we don't know exactly what it looked like. We certainly don't know what colour it was, and by showing it in improbable pyjama stripes, Gilleard highlights and plays with our ignorance. This image asks the child reader to imagine what colours dinosaurs were. If the dinosaur were shown in grey or green, the child wouldn't think about that question.

In the follow-up title, Animal Atlas, the subject is both more familiar and more known-about. A different illustrator was chosen, the pictures closer to reality. Children know what an elephant or a giraffe looks like and so do we. We don't need to make them wonder if perhaps they are blue, or whether they climb trees or make a nest. The artwork is more documentary, but here its aim is to give a kind of intensity to the essence of each animal. It wants to highlight what it means to be a leopard, a crocodile or an ant. The essence of leopardness is not found in how many toes it has but in the sleek, serene, confident pose and steady, direct of the apex predator, the beauty of the markings. The rounded feet, don't show the number of toes, or the claws, but get across the density of the fur on this animal that needs to keep warm in the freezing environment of the high Himalayas.

Crocodilehood is rooted in the gaping mouth with gleaming, scary teeth, carried through in the coldness of that yellow eye.

Animal Atlas, illustrated by Lucy Rose, Lonely Planet, 2019

Art in non-fiction walks a fine line between information and inspiration. It can't be wrong. It can't show the wrong number of toes, show an African elephant in India, or a South American snake in Africa. But it can take the real world and make it fizzles with super-reality, it can condense the wonder of its subject matter. And it can do this because it rests on the shoulders of decades of brilliant photography. We live in a world in which children know what things *look* like, so we have the opportunity to show them what they *are* like.

Buy a small person a beautiful non-fiction book this book Christmas — and choose one with illustrations that no only show facts but open up questions. Especially if the question is 'what would it be like to be a crocodile'.

Anne Rooney
@annerooney
Stroppy author

Lonely Planet, 2019

Why picture books are all about the pictures – Lari Don

I’m not an artist. I’m a writer, and my passion is for words. But when I write a picture book, I know that my words can never be as important as the pictures, for creating the overall feel of the book, or even for telling the story. It is after all, a picture book, not a word book!

Which means that the role of an author writing a story for a picture book is very different from the role of an author writing a novel.

When I’m drafting a novel, my aim is to put pictures - of the characters, the chases, the magic, the monsters - into my readers’ heads. But when I’m drafting a picture book text, I know that the story will be brought to life by the skill of an illustrator, so my words have a different function.

One of my responsibilities as a writer of picture books is to create opportunities for wonderful illustrations. When I write a picture book, I weigh up the plot not just from the point of view of the characters and the readers, but also with the aim of offering the illustrator plenty of chances to create original, magical and dramatic pictures.

For example, when I started writing The Treasure Of The Loch Ness Monster, I wanted to give the artist scope to create as full a world for Nessie as possible. That meant not only pictures of the shores and surface of Loch Ness, but also at least one underwater scene. So I searched for plot ideas that took the characters and therefore the readers down into the depths of Loch Ness. I didn’t know what the illustrator Natasa Ilincic would draw for that scene, but I did know that I had to write a plot which gave her the chance to explore it.

One of the strengths of a picture book is that it’s not just the writers’ story. A picture book (unless it is created by one of those amazingly talented people who can write AND draw) is created by two people’s imaginations. The world of a picture book is not just the writer’s world, it is the illustrator’s world too: a shared world that has been enhanced and deepened by both our imaginations. When the illustrator is someone as talented and wise and deeply immersed in folklore and history as Natasa, then the illustrations bring a huge amount to the story’s world.

I love being surprised by someone else’s vision of the story. In this book, the treasure chamber that Natasa imagined under Castle Urquhart took my breath away. I’d imagined a small dark room containing not much more than the treasure necessary for the plot, but Natasa drew a huge arched chamber filled with fascinating objects from legend and history. I see something new everything I look at it! And that’s the joy of writing picture books. I knew what I needed the room to contain for the characters and the narrative, and Natasa drew that perfectly, but then she added her own magic, her own vision, and she made the story so much stronger.

And that’s why the pictures are the heart of a picture book!

Lari Don’s most recent book is The Treasure of the Loch Ness Monster, published by Floris Books. Lari has written more than 30 books for all ages, including fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales, a teen thriller and novellas for reluctant readers.
Lari’s website 
Lari’s own blog 
Lari on Twitter 
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Lari is on Instagram as LariDonWriter

INSPIRATIONS – Dianne Hofmeyr

Piet Grobler's exuberant illustration for our new book FIDDLE DEE DEE

Hopefully your celebration of the New Year was similarly robust. 

What’s not to like about the year 2018? Such a splendidly round number – plump and ripe and if you believe Chinese numerology, also very lucky with its 8, and the 2 for double or twice lucky, the 0 for limitless and the 1 for a beginning. New beginnings, limitless energy and twice lucky.  Sounds like a good year for writing.

What motivates or inspires us to write?

For me, so much seems to come from tiny, bright sparks of childhood experiences, a scene embedded way back in the brain, a sentence, a word, a room, a face. Slim, ethereal snippets that are somewhere in the subconscious. My cork-board, is not strewn with yellow ‘post-it’ notes of plots… but with pictures. Visual reminders of something I can’t quite place.

I’m like someone about to embark on building a house. I collect designs and ideas from magazines and photographs and put them in a folder. My end-product – not being as clear-cut as building a house – means I'm swamped. Some pictures go back more than 30 years.

Girl dancing with crocodile by Niki Daly on a note he once sent me more than 20 years ago. 

A metal sculpture, with in tiny print below November 1984

When I’m about to start working on a new picture book, the cork-board becomes my memory palace. The one below of an ice cave... probably stemming from a childhood visit to a cave in Africa not with ice but the same idea of darkness and light... went up for my next book, TIGER WALK.

On the board is a girl dancing with a polar bear juxtaposed with a picture of a watching tiger. 

The pictures are there for me to draw on. But when finally the story (without my pictures) is handed over to the illustrator, she or he will have their own memory palaces of ideas that are different to mine. And so the two meld and if the meld is strong, a wonderful book emerges that belongs neither to the writer or the illustrator but to something that is quite ephemeral.

A cave spread by Jesse Hodgson for our new book TIGER WALK

And in the making of the book, just as in the pottery studio where an accidental fingerprint on an otherwise perfect pot, adds its own dimension, so stories acquire shaping through the personal touch of both the illustrator and the writer.

In 2018, dream more, look harder, don’t judge yourself or others, do things that make you laugh and hopefully new beginnings, limitless energy and twice lucky will fall into place. 

www.diannehofmeyr.com

Twitter: @dihofmeyr

Writing Picture Books – Heather Dyer

I'm a freelance developmental editor of children's books, so I see a lot of picture books written by beginners. They are (wisely) seeking feedback before they submit their work to editors and agents.

Here are things I most often suggest:

CUT! CUT! CUT! Editing is usually about taking words out. Often the first verse or first few lines can be cut as they’re preamble to the story ‘proper’. Don’t describe anything that can be illustrated. Don’t include too much dialogue or character reflection. Show things happening in short order, briefly, and keep the language simple. Any words that aren’t serving the storyline need to be removed – they’re padding, and they slow your story down. 

Rhyming verses can be nice, but they’re difficult to translate, and publishers often depend on foreign sales to cover the cost of producing these expensive picture books. Narrative prose is easier to sell abroad.

Unless you’re a professional illustrator, don’t attempt to draw illustrations or have an illustrator friend do them for you. 

A publisher will want to have a say in the style, content and layout of illustrations, and if they want to commission your story they will find an illustrator for you. You may be asked for your opinion – but the illustrator will be given the creative freedom to come up with their own designs.

However, if there’s something in your story that needs to be illustrated because it’s crucial to the storyline – but hasn’t been mentioned in the text – then you can write a short note to the illustrator, describing what needs to be shown.

Although the illustrations and layout won’t be up to you, as author, it is very useful to distribute the text of your story across the ‘imagined’ pages of a finished picture book. This can help show you where you have too much text relating to one page or scene. It can also show you how often the ‘scene’ needs changing, since each page should contain an illustration that’s sufficiently different to the pages before and after (except where you want a double-page spread). You'll see what I mean once you start paginating your text and imagining what might appear on the corresponding page.

How many pages in a picture book? Usually 24, 32 or 40. It's always a number that’s divisible by 8, for printing reasons. The first and last pages are usually front matter or end pages, so you could think about starting your story on page 4 or 5.

You don’t need to submit this plan, just put the imaginary page number above each section of text in your manuscript. This will help the editor or agent ‘visualize’ how the story will unfold across the pages of a finished book.

For a brilliant example of how concise a picture book can be, and how the text works in tandem with the illustrations, check out Jon Klassen’s wonderful This is Not My Hat. Here’s a book that’s beautiful in its simplicity and in which the text and illustrations rely upon each other, Despite it's simplicity, it contains an ambiguous message that makes even adults think twice.

Here, the little fish is speaking. The little fish has stolen the big fish's hat, and thinks s/he's got away with it. But s/he has been spotted by the crab.

Note the lovely contradiction here between the text and the illustrations! This example demonstrates how little needs to be said in the text - and how much the illustrations can add.

In a picture book, the text and the illustrations work in tandem to tell the story. So, although you don't have to be an illustrator to write a children's book, it does help to think about how the text might work alongside the illustrations.

An author might be consulted on the illustrations, but they won't be able to dictate to the illustrator. It can feel scary relinquishing control, but it can also be wonderful to see how much atmosphere, humour and characterisation an illustrator can add to your story. It's like seeing your story come to life.

Good luck!

Heather Dyer, Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow

http://rlfconsultants.com/consultants/heather-dyer/

www.heatherdyer.co.uk

BOLOGNA BOOK FAIR 2016 – TRENDS IN ILLUSTRATION – Dianne Hofmeyr

I couldn’t help but be struck by the vibe of Bologna. Art students flood the halls carrying portfolios and in the afternoons, it’s open house for them to show their work to publishers. Students line up in queues snaking through the halls, in the hope of being the next best discovery. How hard it must be for acquisition teams as they sift through the work and how hard for the students. But there's hope! The picture book won't die.

In the confusion of the first morning I felt the most tangible thing to do would be to walk around the Illustration Exhibition where the work of about 60 illustrators from more than 1000 applicants was displayed. Two separate exhibitions were given over to two individual artists, Laura Carlin and Maisie Paradise Sheering both from the UK.

Laura Carlin, the Bratislava 2015 winner, won the cover design for the 2016 Bologna brochure

and Maisie Sheering, who won the Ragazzi Award for Illustration in 2015, showed the Oscar Wilde story of The Little Prince, El Principe Felix.

Laura’s swimming pool illustration immediately gave me heart palpitations with its crowded confusion of bodies and splashing. I think a left-over from visiting a municipal swimming pool for the first time in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe with my 5 year old cousin who was a good swimmer and intent on drowning me. It reminded me that illustration has the ability to evoke deep, dark, hidden emotion.

In general I had a sense that colours were more muted. There was more print work (although I seem to have chosen painterly work here) and a feeling of retro was coming through. Interestingly the text isn’t put up next to the illustration, which makes looking at the work more like reading a wordless picture book as you hazard a guess. At random in no particular order here are some glimpses.

From Kalimat publishers in the Emirates (I’ve just returned from the Sharjah Children's Reading Festival) the winner of the New Horisons category in the Bologna Ragazzi Award for the book, Lisanak Hisanak –which means Topsy Turvy and is a play on the double calligraphic meaning of different Arabic words, by Fatima Sharafeddine, illustrated by Hanane Qai.

Italy never disappoints and this work by Veronica Ruffato was particularly haunting.

  

More figurework by Giulio Pastorino, also from Italy, with fresh brushstrokes and colour evoking African markets.

From China, Zuming Wang for his tiger with a thorn. Why are tigers so popular right now?

The moon again from Japan, by Yudal Suzuki & Megumi Ohto with mice eating the moon. What might not come through in this basic photograph taken with an iPad is that the paper is textured.

And one of my favourites from Taiwan by Shu-man Wang where a little boy watches his father/grandfather? build delicate, airy cane-work against flat planes of colour. I love the tiny details like the pairs of Asian scissors and the paper patterns. For me there was a real sense of wonder.

From Argentina, Cynthia Alonso. 

From Spain, Manuel Marsol with some very small and rather curious paintings that had the sense of being sketches out of an old 1950's autograph book, by a talented friend/cousin/aunt.

 Of course Bologna isn't Bologna without a stop for an ice-cream between halls

 

And when a break is needed, a coffee in the sunshine on the edge of Piazza Maggiore with a friend. 

And finally there's the extra pleasure of discovering a mammoth poster of your son's novel at the Fanucci Editore stand.

   

A happy tail-end to the Bank Holiday week-end!
www.diannehofmeyr.com

twitter: @dihofmeyr