Here is a trailer for the sequel to The Storm Whale. Could you make an animated trailer to promote this book? Has there been a particular person who influenced you – an artist or author for example, or someone completely other? Noi lived with his fisherman father and their six cats in a small house by the sea. Every day his father would head out to sea on his boat, and the young boy would be on his own. Then one day, after a great storm, Noi found a baby whale washed up on shore. Determined to care for this stranded creature, Noi brought the whale home and put it in the bathtub. His understanding father, when he discovered the cetacean in the tub, realized that Noi had been lonely, but told him that they would have to return the whale to his ocean home all the same.

My grandad was big influence on me when I was growing up — I think he was responsible for giving me a love of books and the natural world. THIS WEEK author and illustrator, Benji Davies, creator of The Storm Whale and Grandad’s Island, launched his highly anticipated picture book, The Storm Whale in Winter. Nostalgic and gentle, this book is beautifully crafted, with filmic, sometimes panoramic illustrations and a plot line that will give the reader goosebumps (in a good way) — so strong is the message and sense of there being a true friendship between boy and whale. One morning, after a violent storm sweeps the island, Noi goes down to the beach and spots something curious in the distance.

We in this house love the sea and any stories about it, so this picture book caught our eye immediately.

Write the conversation that Noi has with his father when the whale is discovered in the bath. Use direct speech and / or reported speech to record what is said. Later this year, Davies is returning to the world of The Storm Whale with a fourth book in the series, following on from 2016’s The Storm Whale in Winter and 2018’s Grandma Bird. He says of the inspiration behind it: “Whenever I’ve been working on one book, there are always other ideas that come along that don’t fit in with the pattern of the story that I’m writing, which then subconsciously sit there and kind of mix together. This one just felt like a natural continuation from the Grandma Bird story, where I had introduced her. I felt like it would be interesting for [the series’ main character] Noi to know more about his grandma. So that’s really where this story came from.”Whales are sometimes kept in captivity. Plan and carry out a debate to discuss the different points of view surrounding this issue. I don’t remember a huge number of picture books from when I was little but Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came to Tea was a big favourite. I also loved the Frog And Toad books by Arnold Lobel, and when I was bit older The Animals of Farthing Wood by Colin Dann. My all time favourite is The Little Grey Men by BB. Look at the silhouette pictures on the inside covers. Could you create similar pictures based on whales or other animals?

London-based illustrator and animation director Benji Davies reconciles these two contradictory demands with enormous tenderness and thoughtfulness in The Storm Whale ( public library) — a beautiful belated addition to the best children’s books of 2014. A quiet meditation on what happens when solitude becomes loneliness, the story welcomes the challenges and rewards of single-parenting, celebrating the redemptive power of attentive love.Psychologists have found that presence is the key to great parenting and yet also maintain that growing a capacity for fertile solitude is a developmental achievement for the child. Noi is a little boy who lives by the sea with his fisherman-father and their six cats. Like in the touching Davey McGravy and My Father’s Arms Are a Boat— two of the most unusual and wonderful books that help children grieve— there is no mother in the picture. With great subtlety, Davies invites the reader to sense the presence of loss in the salty air of this small and sensitive child’s life.