Pippa: Nick will no doubt answer your question about what was behind the creation of You Choose, but of course that came from me some time before he was involved. I have three daughters, and when they were young they loved browsing through catalogues, choosing things. I realised that it didn’t matter to them that they knew they weren’t going to actually get those things; it was the choosing that was the fun part. So I came up with what was at first called ‘A Book For Browsers’. My agent couldn’t see the point of it. Nine publishers turned it down because ‘it doesn’t tell a story’. Then I sent it to Random House, and an editor who had young children of her own instantly understood that the whole point was that the text didn’t tell a story. It opened up possibilities for the child audience to play with in whatever way they liked. She asked me if I had an illustrator in mind, and I dared to admit that I was hoping for Nick Sharratt. So she rang him, there and then as I sat in her office! And suddenly You Choose was on its way.
e: What do you think makes an illustration magical, what I call "Heart Art” - the sort that makes a reader want to come back to look again and again?Pippa: 'Heart Art’ is going to be different for everyone. Thinking back, I can vividly remember certain book images from my own childhood - Laura (Ingalls Wilder) angrily bounding the paddle in the butter churn, wonderfully drawn by Garth Williams, and then there’s the rescued Spanish Civil War puppy, Leon, in the book of that name by Helen Griffiths, illustrated by Victor Ambrus. Those images have stayed with me for more than half a century, instantly recallable. Why? I think because I wanted to be that feisty, slightly rebellious, girl whose Pa understood her frustrations. And, oh, I longed to find an abandoned puppy! Those particular images spoke to particular child me.
e: Garth Williams is one of my favorite illustrators too!
e: Nick, I’ve been a fan of your work for so long! It’s so kid friendly and accessible and was a real treat to see some of your work in person at Seven Stories when I was studying in Edinburgh. What was your creative process/medium for You Choose, can you walk us through it?
Nick: As I remember it, once the book was given the go-ahead, there was a lot brainstorming to sort out what the contents would be and think about the essential things to include in each spread. Long lists were made! Pippa came up with the themes and I had to decide how to present each of theme: a series of vignettes or a single detailed scene. Pencil roughs followed.
A friend had told me that it would take about a day to colour in each picture, which was not the case at all- it ended up taking me about a fortnight per spread! At the very start I only had a little laptop and I didn’t even have a mouse, so I was doing it all with my finger on the touch pad. Madness! Anyway, I learned by my mistakes, discovering new things every day and my computer skills improved in leaps and bounds. When I finally finished the book there was a massive sense of achievement, although it took a me a long time before I could face another project of such complexity!
Nick: Loved drawing as a toddler. Loved art at school. Was the class ‘artist’ all the way through primary and secondary education. Took art O’level and A’level and went to art school: a foundation year in Manchester and a degree in graphic design in London. (This was in the days before there were specific courses in book illustration, which is most likely what I would have studied if I’d been able.)
After college, There were about ten years of doing editorial illustration for magazines, primarily, along with some work for educational text books. My breakthrough into the children’s book world came when a designer from the trade department at Oxford University Press saw my work in the educational department, resulting in my first picture book commission. That started the ball rolling.
Nick: Pippa was at a talk I gave at a Federation of Children’s Book Groups conference. I showed some slides of the highly detailed drawings I liked to do as a boy, and as I recall, that’s what made her think I might be good for a busy book like You Choose. When I was a teenager I loved to create really intricate pictures, along the lines of ‘Where’s Wally? but by and large, my book illustration style at that time was quite simple.
e: Nick, what do you think makes an illustration magical, what I call "Heart Art” - the sort that makes a reader want to come back to look again and again?Nick: There were two distinct kinds of illustration that appealed to me as a boy and could be defined as ‘Heart Art’. There was the realistic style as exemplified by the Ladybird books, where the skilfully painted pictures were so lifelike I could step into the scenes. To me (and to entire generations of children brought up on Ladybird books) those images were quite simply ‘real’, it didn’t properly compute that they had been created by an artist. Although I must have done, I don’t recall actually reading the words in a Ladybird book - I spent my entire time absorbed in the pictures (I’d often just open a book at random and lose myself in whatever scene I stumbled upon.) They’re etched in my mind for ever and just the thought of them still triggers a visceral reaction.
Then there were the more stylised illustrations which came to life in a different way, in that the pictures drew me in and the characters lived and breathed in my mind, but, as a budding artist, I could actually see and appreciate how the drawing had been done - that the artist had used a pen, or a crayon, or a brush, and had chosen to make certain marks and use graphic devices to imbue the imagery with character and personality, and - most satisfyingly for me - a sense of fun. The book illustrations that I encountered and enjoyed most (by the likes of Michel Foreman, David McKee and John Vernon Lord) were exuberant, witty, and joyfully colourful, and there was a clarity of intent there too - the style wasn’t so sophisticated that it was a challenge for me to interpret. Ultimately I loved these pictures more than ‘real’ illustration, because of the extra thrill of comprehending that an artist had magically created the world on the page in front to me.
Nick: I never once imagined that I could make images like the ‘real’ pictures in the Ladybird books, but I was hugely inspired by the stylised illustrations. They influenced my own drawing style as a boy and the memory of those illustrations influences my work still.
Nick: The most challenging and ultimately rewarding part for me is the continual fiddling with the words or the rough drawings to find exactly the right tone for what it is I want to say. And the thing is, I’m hardly ever sure what it is that I want to say, so I don’t know what I’m looking for until I find it!
e: Is there something in particular about You Choose you hope readers will take away with them, perhaps something that isn’t immediately obvious?
Nick: We are discovering different ways that You Choose is enjoyed and put to use all the time. See this blog for BookTrust.
Photo of Nick's "Studio" at the 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in 2015
Nick: Well, another You Choose book would be lovely! In the meantime I have quite a few picture books in various stages of development. It’s sad not to have been doing actual book events during this strange year, but it has given me a bit more time for pondering and dreaming up new ideas.
e: I have a feeling you're going to come out the other side with a whole stack of new books to share - I hope so! I can't wait to see them. Thank you both for sharing!
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