I was expecting my third child, and a publisher came to me and said he was just starting out a publishing house, and his name was Sebastian Walker. He said would you do a book with me? And I said yes, but not yet. Please just let me have this baby and
but I will do something for you a bit later on. Which I did.
But in the meantime my daughter had infantile eczema which is
it keeps you awake at night like, you know, you think babies keep you awake at night, but when they’ve got eczema, they really keep you awake at night, and the thing that we did with her was show her catalogues of baby’s equipment and baby’s clothes and things like that which she loved and it stopped her from scratching.
So we used to walk up and down all night showing her advertisements and catalogues and things like that. And I thought well why isn’t there anything really that would, you know, be in the shops that would be good. And I thought, right, that’s what I’m going to do with this Sebastian Walker who had come to me and said would I do something with him.
So we started doing a series of board books which were a huge success cause a lot of people must have been thinking why aren’t there books for babies. So that’s how it started. So I did a series of
I can’t remember how many. And then I did another series for slightly older where they’re just beginning to go outside the house and experience other things.
And then another set that when they’re sort of preschool, starting their first ballet class, or going to nursery school for the first time. And all this time my daughter was growing up at that stage.
The only board books I knew before I did mine were the Dick Bruno board books which were very, very good. I think the thing about board books, they must be very, very simple because the experiences of babies is just things that they do, their mother and the food they eat, the clothes they put on, and the pot they’ve put on.
The board books are really — there isn’t a story there, it’s just objects and babies, and this is one that’s called Dressing. And really it starts off with a little baby in a nappy, and then he gets put on
a little vest is put on him, and then a little pair of socks. It’s just for them to recognize
different things
that they’re familiar with.
So you have to keep it down to that level. And actually trying to simplify drawings down to that level is quite, is much more difficult than you would think, but very interesting.