Time travel, a spot of sunshine, and some very big ideas

Story Street #20

Welcome to Story Street – a monthly newsletter from children’s author and illustrator Jane Porter. Read on for ramblings about my life as a picture book maker, community artist, comic diarist, underconfident fiddle player and very, very amateur luthier.

I’ve been all over the place since the last episode of Story Street: Scunthorpe, Cheltenham, Ireland, and Ancient Egypt - but the last one was only in my imagination. Read on to find out what took me to all these very different places…

But first, a celebration: in just a few days, on Thursday June 6^th, it’s publication day for my new picture book with Otter Barry Books, ‘Mabel and the Big Wide World’. With words by Paul Stewart and illustrations by me, it’s the story of a little mouse who is afraid to go outside.

Here’s Mabel peeping out anxiously, while her brothers and sisters frolick in the sun. You’ll be happy to hear she does eventually overcome her fears to discover the joys of the outdoors - and eventually is able to be a guide to her brand new little brother, introducing him to the wonders outside the barn.

If you’d like to see more, here’s a link for a video I made where I show the whole book and talk about the process of illustrating it all in collage… or better still, buy the book!

A time-travelling adventure

A couple of weeks ago I had an unexpected and lovely commission – to make a book for the British Library Learning team.

The brief was that it had to be about time travel, ideally to ancient Egypt, and it needed to include an envelope with a letter in, a door you could open, and a flap – and the turnaround was tight. This kind of brief gets me excited - I thrive on short deadlines.

Once I started researching Ancient Egypt, I quickly found my angle: a present-day cat (well actually, it’s my cat Carl) is invited back 4000 years to an age when cats were revered as gods. That gave me plenty to play with… here’s a glimpse of what I made –

I’ll share the link when it goes live. It’s good to think this project will be used to inspire children all over the UK to make their own books.

The British Library Learning team have created a wonderful set of resources for schools and families, and although the cyber attack last year means the online part of this is currently limited, they DO have lots of great things on their YouTube channel - you’ll even see me popping up in a few of them. You can take a look via this link:

During lockdown, the BL Learning team invited me to make a miniature book, and I created one about the joy of making things, called The Sunshine Cupboard. I was over the moon when it was displayed in the British Library’s Treasures Gallery, no less! Here’s me beaming under my mask (remember them?):

You can see a video featuring the book on the BL YouTube through the link above.

I developed The Sunshine Cupboard into a picture book proposal, though sadly have had no takers for it so far. But lately, I’ve been feeling inspired to revisit it with a whole new, very loose, very collagey approach to the artwork. I’m planning to put something together just for the joy of it, without trying to second-guess what a commissioning editor might say, and I’m going to work fast and freely.

Sums in Scunthorpe

Very early on a hot May Saturday, I headed for Kings Cross and caught the train to Scunthorpe for an event organised by North Lincolnshire Children’s Literacy Trust. It’s the third year that they have invited local families to a ‘Let’s Get Ready For School’ fair, and when they discovered I’d written a book of that very name, they invited me to come along. I spent the day chatting, telling stories, and making up new tales based on the children’s ideas – and signing LOTS of books, as everyone who attended was given a free copy of Let’s Get Ready for School (by me and Carolina Rabei, published by Walker Books).

I met so many inspiring families and lovely people, and my day ended with an impromptu maths lesson where two children set me some tricky challenges on the flipchart – and rewarded me with a great big hug when I got my sums right! The whole day even inspired me to write a poem.

If you know anyone starting school this September, now is a good time to give them a copy of the book – there’s a link to buy below.

Seven Very Big and Difficult Ideas

Every time I visit a school or nursery I come away bowled over by the uninhibited imagination, energy and ambition of the children I meet. Recently I spent the day at a Cheltenham primary school, working with Year 6 children to make Zines. I was blown away when one boy showed me this book…. I wish I could think that big!

I will spend the rest of my life wondering what the other five ideas were going to be…

Pearl and Her Bunch

Last month saw the launch of a beautiful new book from Momoko Abe – Pearl and her Bunch, published by Hachette. All Momoko’s picture books are SO clever – the themes are truly deep and touching, but they are delivered with such lightness and humour. I’m in awe.

The artwork is meticulous, colour palettes mouth-watering and the characters (usually inanimate objects) are ones you will fall in love with.

Pearl is actually a pea, but she doesn’t know it at first, living happily with the grape family who have adopted her after finding her abandoned under the toaster. A chance discovery prompts an identity crisis, before Pearl realises that love is what really matters. Highly recommended!

Momoko has a brilliant Substack newsletter – well worth signing up for it you are interested in picture books – and you can read all about how Pearl came to be here:

You can also watch me chatting to Momoko about one of her earlier picture books, When The Sun Goes Home, in the video below – look out for an appearance by Momoko’s beautiful cat Clementine, who has a cameo role in all of her books.

Unblocked at last

Now for some violin-making news… regular readers might remember I have been having terrible trouble getting my blocks right. I’ve lost count of the number I have carefully cut and planed, then discovered on measuring again that they are too small. (All violins are built around six blocks which support the structure – but you never see them as they are hidden inside). It’s embarrassing – but what’s even more excruciating is that I finally found out why. The answer involves my nemesis, the Vernier Caliper…

It turns out that I had completely misunderstood how to read the caliper, with the result that all the blocks I had thought too small, were actually too BIG.

The humiliation was intense, but so was the relief as I realised I wasn’t going mad AND I didn’t need to start again, but simply make them smaller.  I went straight out and purchased a DIGITAL caliper – and the following week at the end of a day of ultra-cautious micro-shaving, MY BLOCKS PASSED INSPECTION! Just before half term I managed to glue the blocks to the mould, and I have now started thicknessing my ribs. More on this next time…

Little houses

Here’s a quick quilt update – I’ve been making panels of little houses for it, complete with pebbly paving in front. I’ve got quite a lot of separate elements ready now, and need to find a way to piece them together without the effect being overwhelmingly busy. Or maybe I just need to accept that it’s going to be a busy quilt…

I got sidetracked on the sewing machine into making a waterproof hat – I made it up as I went along, copying a sun hat I had. When the diameter for the top proved too small, I just chopped out a little insert by eye and added it to fit – if only I could make a violin that easily! I made the hat for an adventure I’ve just had in Ireland - rowing down the river Shannon for five days. Luckily the hat worked for sun and rain, and we had a good sprinkling of both as we paddled gently along with housemartins swooping low and curious cows along the way.

Thankyou for reading - and goodbye from me and Mabel! If you enjoyed this post, do share it with friends.