Mem and I hadn’t met before, but Mem’s editor used to send me books and texts asking me if I would fancy illustrating them. And mostly I said no. They weren’t quite right for me. And then she sent me Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes.
And I read it, and I thought I know this. I know this. This is
I’ve been brought up on this, I’m sure. And it felt as comfortable as a pair of lovely old slippers. And I just thought it was wonderful. But what clinched the deal was the last two pages where I think it’s a stroke of genius for Mem.
And I said yes, I certainly would love to illustrate that. But it is so like a nursery rhyme, and I used to go around saying “And these little babies as everyone knows
” you know, like getting a song in their head. And I thought, I’ve got to illustrate that. It’s lovely.
It wasn’t easy, actually. You’d think it was, but it’s not-wasn’t, to pace that book especially at the end. You build up the suspense, and so that the end is a tremendous impact. Now to shuffle everything down to get that is quite tricky.
And it is the absolutely eleventh hour that the last picture which I did with all the line of babies, that was only put in at the eleventh hour just to just draw it out a little bit longer before the final lovely ending.
I love the look of little babies. I sort of marvel at them. I can’t believe them that they’re so lovely. I think babies are wasted on young people
cause my last child I had when I was
there’s 10 years between my first children and my last one.
And I so appreciated the last one, and I wasn’t sort of thinking I wish she’d hurry up and speak, I wish she’d hurry up and talk, walk. And I wish I could get her off to school, and, you know. I just savored every moment of her.