As we continue to celebrate the winners of this year's Waterstones Children's Book Prize, we are delighted to share a piece from Chloe Savage whose picture book The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish was chosen as the winner of the Best Illustrated Book category. In this exclusive piece, Chloe talks about the book that made her a writer and illustrator.
I was never a great reader as a child. I remember with vivid clarity the heart pounding horror of being asked to read aloud in class, and for a while that misery sank into how I felt about school and life, not leaving much room for a love of reading.
My love of books comes from entirely outside of school, both my parents are great readers and book lovers, so our house was always overflowing with stacks of books. The book which most inspired me to become an author illustrator is A.A. Milne's When We Were Very Young with illustrations by E. H. Shepard, it is a collection of the most wonderful poems which encompass everything that I would like my work to become. This is not because I want to be a poet, what truly inspires me about this book is my experience of having it read aloud to me as a child.
Our copy was a lovely cloth bound edition, with the drawings in the simple black and white, deceivingly simple, but deeply expressive, both elegant and energetic. This is so deeply connected to my childhood that I swear this book smells like Sunday dinners in the house where I grew up, it sounds like the clank of plates coming out of the cupboard ringing like a dinner bell to my bedroom upstairs. There are so many parts of the book which have been assimilated into the culture of our family, there are poems we still know by heart because they have been read aloud so many times, and I still watch out for bears when I step on the cracks in the pavement.
This is a book which must be read aloud and listened to, it's pure brilliance lays in the way it is read, my first experience of performance poetry was my mum yawning the word "maaaaarmalade" in The Kings Breakfast. These moments of shared experience are so vivid in my memory, it still deeply inspires my work. I am constantly thinking about what I want my nephews and nieces to know about the world, and most importantly I am thinking about the experience of reading with them. I want to make books for sharing, to be read and enjoyed both together and apart. My own struggles with reading are the reason that my work is so highly detailed, so that regardless of your reading ability you will be able to experience the story through the pictures.
All the wisdom of life is encompassed in these poems, through humour and close observation, there is a wonderful sense of universal feeling. For instance when lovely plump Pooh Bear realises that he is perfect just the way he is. May all the bears and people I know live in a similar space of self acceptance.
That feeling of sand between your toes, or sitting halfway down the stairs, Jonathan Jo who works for free for the cost of a smile and Sir Brian's boots with great big knobs on. The wonderful drawing of the Mary Jane, the very image of toddler frustration. Shepard's illustrations are charming, they bring so much expression and personality to the characters, my favourite being in the poem "Disobedience" where James James Morrison Morrison Wetherby George Dupree's irreverent mother is so elegantly expressed in the drawings, drifting off towards the corner. The rhythm of the poem is almost singsong, to read it aloud together creates a memory of joy in reading which will last all my life.
Over the last three years, I have had the great pleasure of seeing my parents becoming grandparents and reading with their grandson. That moment when he brings a book and snuggles in against them, he twists so that he can watch their faces while they are reading, he mimics their expressions and calls out his favourite phrases. The bond this forms between them, the shared love, the experience shared, is so utterly precious. That moment right there, that's what it's all about.
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