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Picture book retrospective – The Goblin and the Cupboard

For the last few weeks I’ve been doing a retrospective of my picture books.

The Goblin and the Cupboard, my most recently  published book, was
actually written before any of the others. I wrote it for my son Ray
when he was still at playschool. It’s four interlinked stories about
crossovers between the ‘real’ world and the monster world, and a goblin
who lives between the two. There’s also a collection of short poems,
mostly about animals.

The illustrations are all new, black and white, done in charcoal, with a
bit of digital tittivation here and there. My favourites are the one
where Lucy finds herself in a cellar in the monster house; the one where
the monster writer and the ‘real world’ writer come face to face; and
the illustration to ‘A Cow Should Never Wear a Hat’, one of the poems.

Picture book retrospective – The Fisher Prince

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books.

The Fisher Prince is another story co-created with Mollie
Macgregor-Kinnis, and again it’s based on one of Mollie’s dreams, about
a prince who’s only interested in fishing, and who holds a
fishing-themed ball as a means of finding himself a bride. Ayumi, the
lake-keeper’s daughter, and Wendy, the serving-girl who works at the
palace, were both lifted straight from Mollie’s dream. In fact the whole
story, with its proper fairy-tale atmosphere, was pretty much ready-made
in Mollie’s dream, and all I had to do was write it out.

The picture of the magical golden fish which lives in the lake is
adapted from one of Mollie’s glassware designs. My other favourites are
of Khota, Ayumi’s father; and of Nimue, the Lady of the Lake.