Sheep on the loo, sheep making sandwiches, sheep reading books and filling up the house … writer/illustrator Christina Booth’s new book Too Many Sheep is tickling children with its absurdity and making them laugh. In this Q&A Booth talks about sheep, studying the anatomy of Tasmanian Devils so she could draw them right, receiving the Wilderness Society’s Environmental Award for Children’s Literature in 2014, and hoping children will let their imaginations go wild.
Your new picture book for children, Too Many Sheep, was published by Scholastic on May 1. It is aimed at children aged 4 to 7. What do children most enjoy about this story? What inspired you to write it?
This new book is a lot of fun and it was great fun to create. I love observing young children taking adults literally and so I had the image of a house filling up with sheep that were being counted in my mind for a long time. Eventually I wrote the text for Too Many Sheep, where a young boy invites sheep over to be counted but the sheep know they are onto a good thing and trouble begins. When I read this story to children they laugh and love the parts of the story when things become a disaster, where there is a sheep on the loo, where they make sandwiches in the kitchen. They like the book-reading sheep who is sad that it can’t stay longer to finish the book. I think they like the fact that they can see themselves in the story.
What is one fun fact, whimsical sentiment or other inspirational delight that you hope young readers will take from your story?
That our imaginations are amazing and unstoppable, that we can tame our ideas or let them go wild and create crazy worlds and adventures and still stay safe.
What three words best describe the style of illustrations in Too Many Sheep?
Funny, quirky, playful.
You say Too Many Sheep is your ‘first illustrated book completed graphically on the computer’. How did it feel to make this transition and what did it involve?
The transition into illustrating digitally has been a gradual and slow one so by the time I started illustrating Too Many Sheep I was feeling quite confident and excited about the possibilities. I did discover that drawing digitally isn’t a short cut or quicker process than hand rendering onto paper, as the temptation to keep hitting the undo button extended the process. It was important to me that the book didn’t scream ‘digital illustration’. Just as with any book, I want the images to be enjoyed, devoured and loved, then explored as to how they were completed. Drawing digitally is just another medium I am using as an artist, and I had to learn to use it as such, not to try to use it to imitate other mediums. I love working digitally but I also love working on paper and getting my hands dirty!
You are both an author and an illustrator of children’s books. What’s good about being able to do both?
I love that I can weave both words and images together like dancing partners to create a whole story. It certainly helps when I am writing the text for a picture book to be able to edit down the words knowing what I will use to visually tell the story.
Who are two or three Australian writer-illustrators of children’s picture books you most admire and why?
I love the work of Shaun Tan, his depth of imagination and creative uniqueness. I adore Freya Blackwood’s work, her use of line and movement and unique perspective. Robert Ingpen is amazing, his intense use of texture and line, colour and light. I have always found him an inspiration.
What was it like to collaborate with such Australian children’s literature greats as Colin Thiele, Christobel Mattingley and Jackie French? Can you briefly describe the process? The fun you had?
It was amazing to work with the words of these amazing authors. I felt very privileged. I didn’t get to collaborate as such but obviously the illustrations were shown to them by the publishers. I am thrilled that Colin Thiele asked for me to illustrate his book. I had illustrated my first trade book for his friend and neighbour, Bill Scott, and he saw my illustrations and liked them. In fact, it was Colin who encouraged his neighbour to use me as his illustrator, so I’m very thankful for that. He then published his own book in the same series and asked for me. I was so excited. My second book and I was illustrating for one of my writing heroes. Meeting these great authors and having them encourage and offer advice was amazing and I was very thankful for their help and genuine support. I keep my letter from Colin and read it from time to time to remind myself how lucky I am to have worked with him.
You once dyed your hair pink in order to grab a publisher’s attention. What words of encouragement and practical advice (apart from pink hair!) can you offer a fledgling writer or illustrator attempting to gain a foothold in the children’s publishing industry?
Firstly, I recommend growing a hide as thick as a rhinoceros. Then make sure you approach the business end of the publishing field with a professional and business like manner. In that, I mean, realise that publishers and publishing houses are businesses. They need to make money and profits or they won’t exist. Try not to take rejections or misunderstandings personally. They are dealing with hundreds of people each week, including hundreds of manuscripts.
I decided that I needed to stand out from the crowd, thus the pink hair so they would remember me, but I don’t recommend selling your soul in order to get published. Stay true to who you are and what you know is right. Sometimes people will offer false flattery to get you to undertake something you might regret later on. I suggest sticking to it, aim high and wide and be adaptable. When you start working with a publisher, you become a part of a creative team, so there has to be a bit of give and take.
What are two or three children’s books your children have read this year (either by themselves or with you) that have touched a chord in them and become their favourites?
My children are grown now but all love to read and my daughter, who still lives at home, is always discussing her reading journey with me (in fact, she is currently helping me by proofreading my novel). We enjoy sharing books and I wait until she finishes a book she is excited about to have a read. She is a great source of enthusiasm and resource into what is happening in the YA market, which is an area I am trying to write for as well as picture books. We have both read Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, The Secret River and The Kite Runner. We both have tall piles of books waiting to be read. I miss snuggle time on the couch over a picture book but all of my children still enjoy reading the picture books I add to my large collection.
Your book Welcome Home (Ford Street Publishing) is the story of a whale as she returns to her ancestral home to see if it is safe. It won the Wilderness Society’s Environmental Award for Children’s Literature in 2014. Did you set out with the intention of writing about the environment in order to educate young readers? What’s crucial when writing a story that probes a social issue and tries to impart a message (but not to preach)?
Yes, I wrote this particular story with the intention of not teaching/preaching, but opening minds to consider thinking about what we do now and learning from the past. I had wanted to write a book regarding whaling for many years but it is quite a gruesome topic and I refuse to use children’s literature as a platform to preach. I want to empower people—readers—to take the information and work out their own ideas. It is also important for me in my writing to offer hope. When I read a newspaper article about a southern right whale birthing in the Derwent River for the first time in nearly 200 years, I knew I had a story. This book will always be very precious to me and it is received well by children and adults of all ages.
The first children’s picture book you wrote and illustrated was Purinina, A Devil’s Tale (Lothian, Hachette). What was your greatest challenge in writing about the Tasmanian devil’s struggle for survival in a way that would engage children?
The first book is usually the hardest but for me it seemed to be one of my easiest. I had a lot to learn and still continue to do so. As for Welcome Home, I wanted to encourage children to investigate further, to be empowered to learn more and to find ways to learn through different styles of storytelling. This story is what is often referred to as faction, where fiction is used to portray fact. My two oldest children are autistic and have always loved facts and figures, statistics and collecting unusual bits of information, so it was natural for me to create a book that offered this. The last pages offer interesting information about the devil that many people don’t know about. I loved researching this and discovering it for myself and sharing it.
My biggest challenge was learning to draw the devils, or purininas. I had to study their anatomy and how they moved before I could get them right. I went to a wildlife park and they took me into the enclosures and allowed me to pat and interact with the devils and that was a great help.
How does your teacher training and past experience teaching primary and secondary school students contribute to your work as a children’s writer and illustrator?
Being a teacher is a wonderful skill to have when working with children of all ages and with adults. I love to share my craft and encourage young readers, writers and artists in following their dreams. I enjoy empowering others to achieve in this industry. As an art teacher, I have been treated to an array of different mediums and have experience working with them. This means I am able to adapt quickly to using new mediums and papers and happy to change paint or pencil to suit the book I am working on, which is often for other authors as well. I do miss classroom teaching and love having the opportunity to visit schools to talk and work with students and teachers.
On July 16 you ran a ‘Writing for Children Workshop’ in Launceston. What useful tip or insight do you most hope workshop participants took home from this workshop?
I think that would depend on what they were trying to achieve in their writing, but an important message is that no matter what style or genre or audience you are writing for, practise your craft and remember to read. Reading is your apprenticeship and it is said that if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.
In your promo for your ‘Illustrating Picture Books Workshop’ you say, ‘Illustrating picture books is a different realm to creating regular art that stands alone?’ Can you tell A Bigger Brighter World readers in a sentence or two what a picture book illustrator needs to do that is so different?
An illustrator really needs to understand the story telling process as much as a writer does. In fact, they are writing as well but using pictures as words. Illustrations need to dance with the words, not copy them, otherwise the book will have no soul.
You also run a children’s story assessment service. What is the most common mistake made by people who want to write stories for children? What remedy do you most often advise?
People naturally use too many words. We all do, even people with experience. The crafting of a story is knowing how to get rid of the words and make those that remain very powerful. I often have stories sent that we can remove half of the text and end up with a stronger and more complete story. It’s not a mistake as such and is part of the learning process, which is why I do what I do as a story telling mentor. One mistake people do make is not allowing enough time for their stories to blossom. We get excited about a great looking text and instead of putting it away (I know, who is patient enough to do that?!) we feel it is finished and send it away. Publishers know if you haven’t given the time to revisit your work after a time away, in much the same way as a dentist knows you only flossed an hour before your appointment.
You grew up in St Helens on Tasmania’s East Coast—and you still live in Tasmania. What is the greatest gift (or curse) this place has given you in your writing?
A mixture of many blessings and some ‘curses’ I suppose. My beautiful environment and creative communities, our slightly different pace of life (it’s busy but in different ways) have inspired me and allowed me to do what I do. Sometimes it gets a bit lonely; most of my author friends are on the ‘big island’ or down south in Hobart and travel isn’t as amenable as it can be on the mainland. Our roads are subject to ice and we don’t have trains (which is also a good thing!). I love catching up with other authors and thankfully our wonderful world of technology helps us to keep in touch regularly.
I read on your blog that you are completing a novel. Can you give us a sneak preview of this or any other work in progress?
My novel has just been sent to a publisher. I now wait in hope. I still get rejections and I still hope away just like any author. It is a fictional story set in Tasmania with a tilt once again toward the environment. It is probably aimed mostly at the younger end of YA. It has taken me five years to write it and edit it and it has certainly got a few more hours of work to do even if it is accepted for publication.
I have another picture book coming out next year with Scholastic called The Anzac Tree. It looks at the effects war has on families. I’m hoping we can launch it on Anzac day.
What was your favourite book or more pleasant reading experience during your childhood and why?
I adored reading as a child. I learned to read from a very young age. My mother would read to my brother and me and also used the time to learn English as it is her second language. I still have many of my childhood books here on my shelves, and some have even survived my children as well. Those that stick in my mind are The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren, The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig, and I adored (and still do) poring over my Coles Funny Picture Book my father bought for me, a book of my very own.
What are the best ways to encourage children to love reading?
I think that children learn to love things by seeing others love them. If we show children a love of reading and allow them to explore and find what is right for them, they will read. We need to be patient and to encourage, not treat it as a chore or something that comes with rules and competition and assessments. Reading and storytelling comes in many forms and is as unique as each of us—we need to find the best way for ourselves.
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