VROMAN'S BOOKSTORE

I found this interesting bookshop when I was in Pasadena, LA.

It's well worth a visit.

 

Click on this image to read something about the history.

  

This is the mural in the children's department. 

THE GHOST DRUM

In this post Susan Price is telling me more about her book The Ghost Drum which won the Carnegie Medal in 1987.

GM:  Having been drawn to your book, The Ghost Drum, by the fascinating imagery of the witches’ houses on chicken-legs, there’s so much more I’d love to know about the story. The Ghost Drum precedes Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials by a decade yet it equals it in magic and suspension of disbelief. How did you research it?

SP:  I’ve been reading fairy-tales, folk-lore and mythology since I was nine. My head is crammed full of images and motifs. I’d read about Lappish witches and their drums – the Vikings were quite scared of Lappish witches!

    The Ghost World books no doubt grew out of this mulch of folk-lore, but the idea arrived in one blow. It was as if I’d been given a postcard with a picture on it, and told – no, ordered – to ‘write about that.’ The picture showed a snowfield below a dark sky filled with stars. In the middle was a great Russian palace, with many towers and domes, all with those bright, jewel-coloured tiles.

    So the story arrived with its atmosphere set. It had to be in darkness and intense cold, but splashed with colour. I knew that it was a Russia of the imagination: the Russia of fairy-tale. I knew that the story was to have magic and witches, and was to be as frightening as it was beautiful. I also knew that the story was to be about someone who had been born in the room at the top of one of those domed towers, and had never left it.

    I did research it, to an extent. Suzanne Massie’s book, ‘Land of the Firebird’ was invaluable to me. In it I found the details about the palace windows being made of thin, painted mica. But much of the book was simply made up, using motifs from legends and fairy-tale.

    It took me something like three years to write Ghost Drum. I broke off and wrote other things to pay the bills while I worked on it. I became so worn out with it that I decided it was no good, and not worth wasting the postage to submit it. I put it away in a drawer and forgot about it for months. Then I came across it, read it, and thought it was the greatest thing written since writing was invented.

    The truth was somewhere between these two extremes! However, I rewrote it again, submitted it, and it was accepted by Faber in the UK, and Farrar-Strauss in the US, almost by return of post.

 

GM: So it started as a powerful visual image. That must be the artist in you.

Was it difficult to write about travelling to other worlds?

 

SP: It was, at first. Two things helped me. One was the account of a Viking funeral, given by an Arab trader. He said a gate was erected to represent the entrance to the other world. A slave-girl (who was later killed to accompany her dead master) was lifted up so she could see over the gate, and she said she saw her master waiting for her on the other side. (She’d been drugged.) This plain image of a gate worked for me as a passage from one world to another. I wanted something solid and easy to imagine.

    The other thing that helped me was thinking about the very vivid, real dreams I’ve always had. I’ve never had a dream where I knew I was dreaming. No matter how bizarre, my dreams are always 3-D solid, with full colour and sound.

    I thought of various folk-lore ideas – such as the one that says you shouldn’t wake someone suddenly, because their soul goes wandering in other worlds while they’re asleep, and will be lost if they’re jerked awake. And then there’s a Bushman saying I copied out and kept in mind while working on the Ghost World books: ‘Somewhere there is a dreamer dreaming us.’

    This helped me imagine the shifting from one world to another, because I know what dreaming is like – and if the apparently real worlds we visit in our dreams are actually other worlds, then it’s not so strange!

GM: That explains it so well and likening it to the idea of dreaming makes it all so convincing in your story.

Finally, I really liked the cat narrator. Was that your own invention or does he relate to a bit of folk-lore you absorbed when you were a child?

SP: The cat... Well, first, I love cats... And then I saw a Bilibin woodcut called 'Sir Cat the Wise' and saw references to this cat in folk-tale.
Then I've always been interested in traditional ways of starting stories. We have only, 'Once upon a time...' but originally there were many ways of starting and ending a story. 'Once upon a time, when dogs drank wine, and monkey chewed tobacca...' or 'I went to the garden to pick a bit of thyme: I've told my tale, now thee tell thine!'
I came across a couple of traditional Russian beginnings. One I've used elsewhere - the stone squirrel who runs up and down a tree, and for every nut he cracks, he tells a story. (Very like Norse Myth, and, of course, the Russian city of Kiev was founded by Vikings.)
The other beginning was about the cat tethered to a tree, and as he walks one way, he sings songs, etc.
    I originally put this at the start of the book because I loved the image, and I like such odd ways of starting stories. To me, it was like the painting on a Russian lacquered box - a dream like image and intense colours.
    But then I found the story becoming quite complicated, and thought it would be useful for younger readers (or listeners) if the cat began each section, reminding them what had happened, commenting on the action, and preparing them for what was to come. That's as deeply as I thought about it, but apparently, it means that the book has three narrators (?) and is quite Meta!
    Years after I wrote the Ghost Drum books, the beautiful Biffo came to live with me.

 If he wasn't a Norwegian Forest Cat, then he could certainly pass for one, and he was definitely wise. He could have walked on as the Cat Who Walks Round the Tree without rehearsal - except that no one would ever have got him to wear a collar and chain, not even a gold one! 

GM: I love the fact that there’s a practical reason for having the cat narrator as well as it adding a traditional resonance. And Biffo is indeed a most beautiful, wise–looking cat.

 

 

 

HOUSES ON CHICKEN-LEGS

 

The witch, Baba Yaga, lived in a house on chicken-legs and I used this image in Witch Watch, a picture book I did with my father Paul Coltman in 1989.

 

There are witches’ houses on chicken-legs, I discovered, in Susan Price’ book The Ghost Drum, first published two years earlier in 1987 and I was fascinated by her descriptions of them.

 

Here’s the passage where we first encounter a house on chicken-legs in The Ghost Drum:

‘Out in the night, in the snow, stood another house. It stood on two giant chicken-legs. It was a little house –a hut- but it had its double windows and its double doors to keep in the warmth of its stove, and it had good thick walls and a roof of pine-shingles. The witch came running over the snow, and the house bent its chicken-legs and lowered its door to the ground. The double doors opened, in went the witch, and the doors banged shut, one after the other.

    The chicken- legs straightened again and lifted the house into the air. The legs began to move. First they paced up and down on the spot, the talons on their toes raking through the crusted snow with splintering sounds of broken ice. Then the legs took a few quick, jerky steps, sprang, and began to run. Away over the snow ran the little house on its chicken-legs.’

Susan’s brother Andrew did this image for the e-book cover of The Ghost Drum: 

These houses can be a bit unpredictable:

 

‘Safa ran after the hut – which had wandered away, scratching the ground, on its chicken-legs.’

And they can make a racket. Here, one of them sounds the alarm:

‘The hut on chicken-legs began to stamp its taloned feet, and to make strange cackling, crackling noises like a chicken, or like a fire.’

   I discovered that other witches had houses ‘that ran upon goose-feet or cat’s paws…’

 And

‘From every part of the world came huts walking on ducks’ feet, bears’ feet, donkeys’ feet, bringing witches and apprentices to congratulate the old witch on her pupil’s success.’

It's such a great image;  I like to try to imagine them running about among  the‘legless houses’ of our own towns and cities.

SCBWI MASS BOOK LAUNCH PARTY

 

It was worth braving rain, wind and floods to get to the SCBWI Mass Book Launch party last Saturday evening. I so nearly didn't  make it. It was a great party, held in Winchester Guildhall. Here are some friends: Candy Gourlay taking the photos, 

 

Anne-Marie Perks organising the illustrators exhibition 

 

 

John Shelly launching his latest book  Halloween Forest - with its wonderfully bold and haunting images. 

 

Then there was the bookshop P&G Wells Ltd. The owner of this brilliant Independent bookshop is David Simpkin, (not in this photo) who was taught by my father, Paul Coltman  at Steyning Grammar. David told me that, while he was at Steyning Grammar, he won the Ted Walker Poetry prize. Ted Walker was also taught by my father and they remained close friends for many years. 

 

The book I was launching was Zoe's Boat. There's a piece about it's graphic form in

SCBWI Illustrators Blog 23 Nov 2012

Lin Oliver was the host at the actual Book Launch. She made it all a lot of fun, getting each participating author and illustrator describe their book in just three words. That really put us all on the spot. I came up with 'feisty, girl, adventure' for Zoe's Boat.

SELF PUBLISHING

 

The NAWE conference for writers in education was held in York last weekend. I'd not been to York before and, bathed in November sunshine, it looked glorious. This was the view from my room at the Park Inn where the conference was held. 

   I was sharing a session on self-publishing with Anthony Haynes, publisher and author. In his talk, Anthony gave a great deal of sound advice on self- publishing and I followed it with my own experiences - good and bad- of running my own publishing company, Plaister Press. In the audience, there were many authors who were also self-publishing and they too contributed to the session. 

    At the end, Anthony published the following post on his Monographer's blog: Self-publishing-why-not-and-how

which is full of useful tips for anyone thinking of going down this route.

GUEST BLOGGER: JOYCE DUNBAR

 

Guest blogger, Joyce Dunbar tells me about her latest picture book Puss Jekyll, Cat Hyde:

Puss Jekyll, Cat Hyde, (illustrated by Jill Barton, published by Frances Lincoln), is a cat with nine lives.

    I wrote it 15 years ago. My then agent, Gina Pollinger, said the text was 'like a fine wine.' But while publishers admired it, they said it would not make a picture book for children. I made some clumsy alterations, adding a child dreamer, but that didn't work, so it sat on my file for another 11 years.

    Then one day, circa 2008, I bundled up a few cat pieces and sent them to my new agent. She picked this one out, and to my surprise, Puffin took it on for their new 'Picture Book Boutique.' We had a lovely dinner in the Strand so that I could meet the illustrator, Jill Barton, to discuss possibilities - a rare enough encounter in itself since publishers on the whole prefer to keep the two species apart.

    Jill, like me, has had an enjoyable run of bears, ducks, rabbits, and so on, but was longing to do something darker. I wondered how she would handle the text. When the bold, graphite images arrived, I danced around the house with excitement. It was so clean, clear and bold, and so different.

    Puffin was equally enthusiastic - but then came the 2009 recession. Not only our book, but quite a few of the boutique books bit the dust. The Americans were no longer buying. There was a half hearted attempt to format it as a cute Mother's Day gift book, with sugar almond background colours and a smaller format. Jill was horrified. I thought it was better than nothing. Even so, 3 months before publication, compelled by market forces, Puffin pulled the plug completely.

    To their great credit, Jill's agent and mine sped round in a taxi together to protest, but to no avail. I showed it to Henry Layte, publisher and owner of our new independent Book shop, and he rewarded me with words of great praise. I didn't expect them to make a difference. But then, wonder of  wonders, within a few months, Frances Lincoln picked it up.

    Working with the first basic layouts they wrought a subtle transformation: Maurice Lyon, the editor, coaxed me into working on the punctuation, which ended up as supremely elegant as our cat, and Jill revisited some of the spreads, doing two complete new ones. The whole thing was watched over by Judith Escreet, the art editor. There was a bit of a fracas about an elusive vole, but finally the finished copies were in our tremulous, thankful hands.

    On Thursday 25th at the Book Hive, we had a wonderful launch. The shop was filled with well wishers and the book was a sell out. It also coincided perfectly with Hallowe'en, when 'good things of day begin to droop and drowse, and night's dark agents to their preys do rouse.' Spot on!

    So we are now feeling very chuffed and purry. It has been a long and difficult journey, but what a gloriously happy ending - so far.

GUEST BLOGGER Adèle Geras

 

 

When Gillian kindly asked me to write about some of my experiences with illustrators, I was surprised to find that I'd never really written about this subject before. I've had some wonderful artists providing images for my work over the many years that I've been published. There was a super cover by Anthony Brown for my collection of spooky stories, Letters of Fire, and Emma Chichester Clark painted most beautiful images for the original three volumes of the Egerton Hall trilogy: The Tower Room, Watching the Roses and Pictures of the Night. My collection of stories from the opera (The Orchard Book of Opera Stories) had a different illustrator for each of the nine stories I was retelling and they were among the best in the land: Emma Chichester Clark again, Jane Ray, Sheila Moxley, Ian Beck, Sarah Field, Sophie Windham, Louise Brierley and Katya Mikhailovsky.

My latest picture book, It's Time for Bed, was published by Piccadilly Press yesterday. It has most delightful pictures by Sophy Williams. I suggested Sophie to my editor but I've never met her, and I've only met Emma Chichester Clark briefly at the launch of the Opera Stories book. I know Jane Ray slightly better but in most cases, I don't meet the person who illustrates my books. This goes right back to the very beginning of my career when almost the first thing I ever wrote, A Thousand Yards of Sea, was given wonderful pictures by Joanna Troughton. I've never met her either but she and I and Emma CC and I now follow one another on Twitter, where I've got to know them somewhat better.

In 2004, Emma Chichester Clark illustrated a whole book of mine, and that was the fulfillment of a long-held wish. She provided the pictures for My First Ballet Stories. and it's one of the loveliest productions you could wish for. There's a full page painting for each of the ballets, and other pages are decorated with pretty borders. There are also smaller vignettes scattered throughout. Here are two of the images, home-scanned, and therefore not doing the originals anything like justice but they will give you some idea of the work. The Swan Lake image I particularly like because it's not the normal cliche of the swans, but highlights instead the sinister Von Rothbart, whom Emma depicts as an owl whose 'wings obscure the moon.'

 

Those are my words of course, but she was the one who seized on them as being what she chose to illustrate. We had no correspondence about it whatsoever but I was thrilled to bits with the way the book turned out. The second image is from the Firebird, and I chose it for this piece because of the wonderful, vibrant green and gold in it. Again, it's not at its best in my scan, but in the book, that green sings from the page.

 

 

Sleeping Beauty,  illustrated by Christian Birmingham 'glows with light and magic.' So says one of the reviewers on Amazon and she is quite right. 

 

 

 

 

This book came about in a rather unusual way. Christian fell in love with a French château and wanted to do a version of the Sleeping Beauty story set there and specifically in the early seventeenth century. He looked about, through the publishers, for someone to write the story and chose me, for which I am very grateful. We did meet to discuss this venture but only once, and then I didn't see him again till the exhibition of his artwork just when the book was launched. Here are two images from the story: the moment when the Wicked Fairy, (who is called Skura in my version) curses the young princess Aurora in her cradle and the moment just before Prince Florian kisses her awake. Once again, the images you can see do not do justice to what you will find in the book.

 

I'd finish by saying that whether I know them or not, I'm immensely grateful for what so many wonderful artists have done for me and I would like to thank them all. If any of my books can be called beautiful, it's thanks to them. We have the best illustrators of children's books in the world, and they add immeasurably to the joy of the reading experience.