Our Tower

Product Information

If All the World Were". www.booktrust.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2022-07-05 . Retrieved 2022-07-04.

Poetry Prompts by Joseph Coelho' ". Discovering Children's Books, British Library. Archived from the original on 2022-07-05 . Retrieved 2022-07-04. I was also really influenced by Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman and John Burningham’s Granpa. Both stories are poignant, humorous and tragic in equal measure, but they taught me how drawing could work in sequence to deliver a narrative, with and without words. The books were turned into animated films. As a child, my sister would watch them endlessly on VHS, and I would be tasked with rewinding the tapes at the end of each viewing! As I began to study illustration more closely, I really loved the work of American illustrators like Lane Smith—I’d often try to figure out how he made his illustrations. Adults have forgotten the wonder in the everyday, but these children see that there is power in the smiles of their neighbours and magic in the kindness of others. There is a beauty to the community of their Tower.

Blow a Kiss, Catch a Kiss

Quarto, the publisher, were fantastic to work with and really let me have fun with the project! We’re currently organising an exhibition of the work, which will be held at The Discover Children’s Story Centre in London, later this year. The characters in Our Tower are completely believable, is character design something you are interested in? I’m currently working on a picture book written by Ross Montgomery, another awesome author. It’s a story about a very old monster who lives on his own and is probably a bit lonely. Again, I was drawn to it because the narrative is little bit sad—as well as being really fun and quirky! Dex, Robert (2022-07-04). "New Children's Laureate Joseph Coelho wants to make a country of poets". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 2022-07-04 . Retrieved 2022-07-04. It was really important that I tried to create an inclusive and diverse group of children in the story, but also that this didn’t define them as individuals. I wanted the children to tell their own story, that might not necessarily be in the text. So, the way they move, and their individual characteristics were essential to cultivate. The girl has binoculars, she is the leader and is always looking to the future. The small boy has a magnifying glass so is always a little bit behind, closely inspecting something. The middle boy, we called ‘Little Joe’—another wink to Joseph—he always carries a notebook, and is drawing and taking notes!

Congratulations on your fantastic work collaboratingwith JosephCoelho on Our Tower, it's simply stunning! From award-winning children’s poet Joseph Coelho comes this enchanting story of three kids looking for adventure in their building.

Lights on Cotton Rock

After speaking with Joseph about the adventures he had growing up in Roehampton, near Richmond Park, I did some visual research into the area and Joseph sent me some photographs. I really wanted to try and create a visual adventure that would complement Joseph’s poem, blending the mundane, the dark and dangerous with the fantastic and celebratory. Visual research is really important to undertake in any project, especially for ‘Our Tower’, and the methods change from project to project. I think a lot of Joseph’s work is autobiographical, so it was important to me that I got a sense of Joseph’s personal story in the imagery. Whilst some of the details had to become lost in the finished artwork—for commercial purposes—I hope the essence of some of that initial research influenced the entire project. I also recorded myself reading the story and went for a long walk into the countryside. As I listened to the words on repeat, I used the countryside to inspire visual stories for the semi-imaginary underground world where the children play. I only started to draw when I got home." The story follows three children who leave their grey dismal tower in search of the marvellous green tree they can see from their windows. As they move through the wood gradually more colour seeps into the images and when they find their tree and discover an entrance to a magical underground world the palette changes entirely to magical purples and blues and the lovely lyrical text becomes joyously rhyming too.