Surprised

I have worked with Resurgence as an illustrator all of my working life, met Satish Kumar a few times and feel very privileged to know him. Today I was just sitting down to work when the dogs barked and the post arrived. When I opened one envelope I found this....

A beautiful edition and I feel so proud to be included. Thank you Resurgence, and bless you.

Reviews

I have been very lucky to have been reviewed by many national and international reviewers and never take getting reviews for granted. Now that so many people can review books on sites like Amazon I am cautious of looking. I think people forget that they are reviewing work that is done by other people and writers have feelings too. And sometimes you need to have thick skin.

It is a fact that many people, and I am one, only remember the bad reviews.

Today press cuttings arrived from my publisher including a review in Books For Keeps. If I had been packing these up in the office I think I would have removed this one. I read it. I thought about it, and here is my response. But first, the review, or a part of it . Two thirds of the review is taken up with an abridgement of the storyline as the reviewer interprets it.

" While the illustrations are lovely, the reader may struggle at times to follow the narrative and make sense of it. Clearer textual connections would help draw us in, especially at the beginning. The language is at times lyrical, at times stilted and the text is quite small on the full colour double page spreads- a larger font would add visual appeal. A slightly disappointing read given the dramatic illustrations."

I have thick skin, like a dragon. Just as well.

I could do a short review of the review and suggest that paraphrasing the story is not the best use of space, and neither is reviewing a book that you do not like. It is a little pointless. Also the balance of type and image is carefully thought through and this being a story for older people the text did not have to be large. ( Obviously I also have a soft underbelly like a dragon.)

On the otherhand in Carousel Magazine a short review says,

" This book is written, illustrated and published with loving care. Set in the polar regions of the Arctic the story is magical; easily understood text and stunning illustrations merge to carry a powerful message that we must care that our actions do not endanger the lives of wild creatures."

Two reviewers, one book. 

You cannot please all of the people all of the time.

I sometimes review books on Amazon, if they are something that I have loved and wish to share my passion for. I sometimes review for magazines. And I never ever give a book a bad review because I know, even if I do not like a book, the passion with which each and every author and illustrator works.

Musing on rejection and reviews

Searching through my studio for a picture today I found rejection letters from publishers for Tell Me a Dragon. One said "nice, but too whimsical for the current market". One said, " I like the idea of doing a dragon book with you, but this lacks any sense of narrative drive. The words serve only as a vehicle for what will be stunning images." So, how lovely to find this review, of the same book. Thanks are due to Frances Lincoln Ltd for having faith in both my writing and my painting and being very patient while I worked on The Snow Leopard and then Tell Me a Dragon.


Sometimes when I sit in my studio in my small cottage by the sea I wonder at how far my books travel. There are dragon books in Denmark, France, Sweden, Spain and America. 
And still a small dragon tugs at my thoughts, pulls at my hair. He wants his book now, his story. 
It is quiet. Dark outside and cold. Inside the house is warmed by the wood fire. I am painting  a fox and my hands smell of wood smoke.

I have had the chair where I sit to work for almost 30 years now. Before it became mine it was the barber's chair in Broadway in the Cotswolds. It has traveled with me, from the corner of a bedroom to the corner of a sitting room in Bath. It has been in a caravan in the garden that would rock when the wind blew, so much that I couldn't paint. And then it has moved around the house. Over the years the paint has rubbed off the arms and they have become smoothed and polished by touch.

Today I took delivery of a new chair. Not one to paint in, but one to sit and think and read in.