LOOK and HELLO

Book ideas sometimes take a long time.

I’m always trying to come up with new book ideas. I’ve been sorting through old notebooks and thought it would be useful to do a little case study on how an idea evolves into a book. At the very least it’s useful to remind myself that books take time to grow and that the inspiration can pretty much come from anywhere.

I’m going to start by telling you about LOOK.
It’s a high concept book that popped into my head about nine or so years before it was published in 2018. It was inspired by a photo taken by my friend Denise on New Years Eve whilst we were on a trip to Peru, of two little girls wearing 2003 novelty glasses.

In 2009 I did an illustration using that same idea, of the zeros being the lenses of the glasses. It took me that long to get round to doing it, but it was the last year with two zeros for a good while. There’s nothing like a deadline!

This led to more doodles with the numbers being replaced with letter O’s. As I started playing with both the shape and sound of the words, a story of a day spent at the zoo told entirely in double ‘O’ words began to form. Starting with the cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster, through to the hoot of an owl at bedtime. 

At this time I was still working in animation and had no idea how to get a book published. I asked around a bit, but was generally discouraged because it was an unusual idea and not a conventional picture book that can easily be translated into different languages. I put it to one side and a few years later I had a brilliant agent who found the perfect home for LOOK with Greenwillow Books in the US. (It then went on to win an AOI World Illustration Award in 2019).

I did lots of rough loose sketches for each page and I worked together with the publisher to get the flow and pacing right, creating many different versions of the story. The important part was incorporating the words within the illustration, to encourage children to engage with both words and pictures together.

I was a very visual kid and a reluctant reader. I wouldn’t have been interested in trying to read the block of text in a conventional picture book. I was far more fascinated by the story a book’s pictures could tell me, whilst having it read aloud to me. Of course, it was only after LOOK came out that I realised I’d made the book I needed as a kid.

The letterforms have as much importance as the drawings, which gently nudge the children into reading. It’s been so rewarding to hear that LOOK is the first book children have read out loud, sometimes out of nowhere. This pinned tweet by C J Penko about such a moment still keeps reminding me why I do what I do.

The idea really dictated the visual style. Everything had to be quite simplified and bold, so that the words are legible. And because it’s such a minimal text, the pictures really have to work hard to tell the story.

It leaves a lot for the parent, teacher or care giver to talk about with the child as they’re reading it. I’m hoping and trusting that they might think of another ‘OO’ word that could be in the toilet. I didn’t want to actually illustrate it, but left it open for them to talk about.

I then went on to make a second book HELLO, written with double ‘L’ words. The story follows the same kids from LOOK, starting with ‘Hello yellow’ as the sun rises and ending with ‘Hello pillow’. With lots of thrills and spills in between.

The main challenge with both books was incorporating the words within all the illustrations and for it to also work within the whole composition. After a lot of head scratching I decided to let some words be independent from the illustration if they were starting to feel a bit too forced.

I’d been trying to get a roller coaster in a book for a while, before finding the perfect opportunity in HELLO. These ones were inspired by the old rattling rides and slides at Dreamland Margate and Coney Island NY.

Hello is dedicated to my friend Denise, who took that photo of the 2003 glasses and the llamas on the case are a nod to our S American adventure!

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Goodbye August

‘August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know.' – Tove Jansson

If you also love The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, I highly recommend this fascinating conversation between Fleur Sinclair and Sophia Jansson (Tove’s niece on whom the child Sophia in the Summer Book is based). Found via Bookshop.org

My homage to Tove Jansson

Happy last day of August and thank you for reading!

Fiona