A rainbow bouquet, an adventurous frog and a riverboat to Rotherhithe

Story Street #4

Spring is in sight and the £1 daffodils are back in the shops – so here’s a big rainbow bouquet to celebrate the lengthening days. It’s from the book I am working on at the moment for Otter Barry Books, a new story by Paul Stewart all about a little mouse called Mabel, and it’s completely made by hand in collage. Just two spreads left to go.

That book won’t be published for at least 18 months, but I do have another new book out tomorrow – and it’s all about FROGS.

We’ve always loved frogs in our family – here are my children (now grown up) helping move the frogs in our tiny garden pond when we had to replace the liner. We counted at least 50 that day!

The new book is called ‘So You Want To Be A Frog’, and it’s a funny non-fiction book packed with frog facts – a follow-up to ‘So You Want To Be An Owl’. I wrote the text, and the illustrations are by Neil Clark – they are the perfect combination of funny and factual. Most people don’t realise that the author and illustrator of a picture book rarely get the chance to meet each other. But I do love meeting the people I work with, whether I have written or illustrated a book, so I invited Neil to have a chat about our favourite frogs on Zoom and made it into a video, which you can watch here – don’t miss the funny story about accidentally taking a frog for a car ride!

‘So You Want To Be A Frog’ is published by Walker Books, and will be out with Candlewick Press in the US in April. You can buy our new book or any of my other titles through the button below – or order in any bookshop.

January seemed to go by very quickly (making marmalade, watching Silent Witness, that sort of thing). But one very memorable highlight was installing the banners I made with schools and community groups at the end of last year at Canons House in Mitcham. Amy from Canons found some rustic sticks and satin ribbon, and we hung the two banners just in time for a visit from the schools that took part. It was lovely to hear all the children spotting their own work on the wall.

If you’d like to know more about the process behind the banners, I wrote a blogpost with lots more detail about this project here:

A treat arrived through my letterbox just in time for Burns Night. ‘One Day’ is a new album from Shetland fiddle player Jenna Reid, who’s also one of the band Blazin’ Fiddles. We met when I went to the fiddle week Blazin’ in Beauly, and Jenna asked me to create some hand lettering for the album cover – and here it is!

I am so proud to be in the credits on this beautiful album. I was also very pleased to see it was made in Birnam, which is where my fiddle-playing great-grandfather lived. If you’d like to buy a copy of the album, you can order one here:

If you like making comics, don’t forget that today (1^st February) is Hourly Comics Day. All over the world, people who enjoy making comics record their day in one hour panels, and share them online using the hashtag #hourlycomicsday.

One of the things I like about it is that it makes you record very ordinary things that might seem dull at the time, but become fascinating when you look back.

This time last year I went on a day out by Riverbus to Rotherhithe. I diligently recorded each hour as we went – but when it came to 2pm I had to use a whole double page spread for an hour because we had an unexpected and completely magical tour of Sands Film Studios. The panel below shows you the highlights – start bottom left. There’s a marvellous and quirky picture library there too - one day I’m going to go and spend a day drawing from the collection of scrapbooks. Today is definitely not going to measure up to that, but I will be recording everything that happens anyway…

If you happen to live in Southfields and have children who like comics, you might like to know about the new Comics Club at Southfields Library, started by our lovely new children’s librarian Silvia. It’s free, every Wednesday at 4pm, for ages 6+.

Silvia also made this display for me in the library - what an honour!

Something I always look forward to in February here in Southfields is Window Wanderland – friends and neighbours decorate their windows to create an after-dark, outdoor art gallery. Can you guess what my theme is going to be this year? I’ll show you in my next newsletter on 1^st March, but in the meantime, you can find out more about how it works in this video. Why not start one where you live?

I’ll be doing two story-times this month reading ‘The Girl Who Noticed Everything’ – with a fun activity to make a lost parrot poster. The first is next Sunday, 5^th February, at 10 am in Herne Hill as part of the marvellous Stepping Into Stories Festival. You can book here:

If you can’t make it to that one, there’s another chance to make a poster and hear the story at Foyles in Charing Cross Road on Sunday 12^th Feb, at 3pm. Do spread the word if you know any families who might like to come along.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, do share with friends and family. See you in March!