“I worked with Henry Cole for probably about 14 years, and knew him as a fabulous artist in the school. He was always very helpful and would do anything that you asked him to do. I cannot draw at all, I’m afraid. I still am at the stick figure stage of drawing, so I used to ask Henry a lot, would he illustrate something that I wanted to give to the children?”
“And, of course, he teaches science, so I knew that animals were a love of his. Animals are a love of mine. I live out in the country. I have a groundhog living underneath the deck, with three little babies. I have foxes walking across the grounds. I adore animals, so it was a natural collaboration, basically, to go with an animal/nature type of theme in most of the books.”
“And I think, when I do write, that I think of Henry as being the illustrator, and I probably turn things that maybe I would normally do with human beings I start to turn them in my mind just to doing them with animals. I think to myself, ‘Henry will do a fabulous little character of that particular protagonist
’”
“The collaboration that Henry and I have is probably rare. I think most authors don’t ever see, or have much contact with, their illustrator. I’m in the lucky position of being able to write a book and take it to Henry and say, “Does this inspire you with a character?” And, you know, then we’re away. I think it’s fabulous to be able to do that.”
“And vice versa, in a way. If he comes up with a character, he will very generously show me that character before he sends it, most of the time, to the publisher. And we can both get excited about the character together. It’s great.”
