Royal Mail Award Nominees - Early Years

Early Years 0-7

This month’s interview features the authors and illustrators who are nominated for the 2008 Royal Mail Awards talking about their shortlisted books as well as discussing other aspects of their writing, drawing, career, childhood and their reading. here you can read about the Early Years Category or if you want to read about the Younger Readers or the Older Readers category click on the links.
You can find out more about each author and illustrator by clicking on their name or by clicking on the book title.

Ross Collins


You have two books on the shortlist, how did the creative process differ between illustrating a picture book and illustrating a novel?
Billy’s world had to be dark and slimy so a lot of green paint had to be bought. I wanted everything to look kind of organic and gnarly, a bit spooky but not terrifying. Billy is just a little monster after all. Creating a picture book is very different from doing the illustrations for a novel. You get less space in a novel so have to make everything you draw really count. The cover is very important too, it’s all about grabbing the reader when they are standing in the shop looking at a million covers and somehow getting them to pick up your book. I like to do a single strong image on a cover so that it can be recognised from a distance. The nice graphic red on ‘The Robe of Skulls’ cover is quite eye catching. I think I’ll make all my covers red from now on…
Who was the last person to send you a manuscript and what was it about?
You can’t tell anyone what other people’s texts are about because someone might pinch the idea and get it published before you. The most recent book I’ve been working on with another author is one by Mij Kelly. It’s about giants, I’ve already told you too much – I’ll have to kill you

Julia Donaldson


Can you tell us a little bit about your book Tyrannosaurus Drip?
It's a bit of an ugly duckling story, except that the egg in the wrong nest is a vegetarian duckbill dinosaur's egg, and it hatches out in a nest belonging to some extremely nasty and bloodthirsty T Rexes, who call him Tyrannosaurus Drip because he won't eat meat or go hunting. I've always been interested in dinosaurs, ever since I found out, as a child, that some of them were only the size of a hen!
What was it like to work with David Roberts?
In fact we worked quite separately: I wrote the book by myself in Glasgow and he illustrated it by himself in London. That's sometimes the best way - then the pictures are a wonderful surprise.  And I love the way the dinosaurs and the prehistoric swamp have turned out.
If any of your books could be made into a cartoon, which book would it be?
Actually, The Gruffalo is going to be made into a television animation - to be shown in Christmas 2009, touch wood. I must say, I think TYRANNOSAURUS DRIP would be a great cartoon, as the little duckbill dinosaur and the grim and grisly tyrannosauruses are such characters.

Alan Durant

 
Can you tell us what inspired you to write Billy Monster’s Daymare?
I'm not sure I can actually. I wrote the first draft about fifteen years ago. I think I was looking for a new twist on an old theme (fear of the dark). The story wasn't quite right so I put it away and then forgot about it. Several years later I found it again and thought it had something, so I changed a few things and added some and showed it to Helen Mortimer, an editor at Oxford University Press, and she liked it! The moral of this being never throw any writing away!
You write books for a variety of age groups, from early years to young adult, do you have a favourite?
No. I started out writing young adult novels for myself and then wrote picture books and young fiction to entertain my children. I like writing for different age ranges, on different subjects and in different genres.
This versatility is one of the things that makes writing interesting to me.
What would you do if you weren’t a writer?
I'd be on the dole probably. I'm not much good at anything else except writing. I wanted to be a writer of some kind from the age of fourteen - though I never dreamed then that I'd be an author. It just didn't seem possible. For many years I worked for the children's publisher Walker Books as a copywriter (I wrote the blurbs for all their books - from Guess How Much I Love You to Where's Wally? to Stormbreaker). It was reading manuscripts to write the blurbs that got me started on writing books for young people. I loved my time at Walker and it had a major effect on my life - and on Billy Monster's!

Simon Puttock


You won the very first Royal Mail Awards in 2006 how confident are you that it could happen again?
What a strange question! Well, I didn’t expect to win then and I don’t expect to win this time either – but I suppose that it is actually possible – after all, that’s why you get put on the short list!  And right now, on the short list is a really nice place to be, thank you.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters of Goat and Donkey?
Phew... Those two... Well... Let me see... Okay... Goat and Donkey are best friends, and like the best best friends they sort of compliment each other. Donkey thinks he’s the sensible one, and Goat is pretty giddy, but I suspect that without Goat to help him be silly, Donkey would take himself far too seriously. And without Donkey to look out for him, I shudder to think what might happen to Goat. I think a lot of friendships are a lot like that! And I know I'm very fond of them. They remind me not to be too serious all the time too.
Do you think that you would suit a pair of Strawberry Sunglasses?
Possible answers: (a) I think I would look very fetching in a pair of strawberry sunglasses, (b) I think I would suit a pair of banana sunglasses better, (c) I’m pretty sure I would look like an utter idiot in any fruit-themed type sunglasses ever invented in the universe.
I know which answer I choose - but everyone’s different – how about you?