Miss Clavel turned on the light and said, “Something is not right!” – Madeleine

You’ve written a wonderful story and identified a publisher. The next step is the most important: wait! Don’t send it off; instead, hide your story for weeks or even months. When you pick it up again it will be like turning on the light –you’ll see with fresh eyes all the lame bits glaring at you. Not waiting has been my biggest mistake as a writer – I always find things I should’ve fixed. When re-reading I often get a Miss Clavel feeling that something is not right; a scene doesn’t fit; the dream is broken and I’m jerked out of the story. A ruthless edit is needed. Illustration from the timeless Madeleine by Ludwig Bemelmans.

 Nothing must be out of place. The reader must keep turning pages with no interruptions in the flow. – Darcy Pattison

Go over and over it…refusing to let anything stay if it looks awkward, phony, or forced.– John Gardner

Here are three of my favourite New Zealand picture books that give children a manageable dose of horror. Gavin Bishop’s Horror of Hickory Bay has grown on me over the years. The story of a bland family on a Canterbury beach and an amorphous beast seemed a bit coarse to me 25 years ago, but now I love the earthy monster (which has a new force in quakey times). Diane Hebley said it best:

I find this book fascinating for its masterly use of colour and design, its grim humour, its coherence of idea, text and image, and for its acceptance of the dreamworld reality.

The Were-Nana by Melinda Szymanik is a creepy delight about a visiting relative who might just be a monster. The suspense is nicely built up and the double surprise ending (true to horror traditions) is brilliant. Odd cover choice but fine shadowy illustrations by Sarah Nelisiwe Anderson.

Te Kapo the Taniwha by Queen Rikihana-Hyland is out of print but was always popular in class. It’s the story of a half-man, half-monster who was given the job of shaping the South Island. Zac Waipara’s pictures are stunning as usual.

The Awful Warning carried to the point where Awe topples over into helpless laughter.– Harvey Darton

Struwwelpeter (Pretty Stories and  Funny Pictures) by Dr Heinrich Hoffman (1845) is a classic of gleefully gruesome cautionary rhymes about naughty children. Hoffman was a psychiatrist who founded an influential Frankfurt asylum and pioneered counselling as an alternative treatment to cold baths (his life was novelized in Clare Dudman’s 98 Reasons for Being). The characters in Struwwelpeter were inspired by his child patients – he’d tell them stories and draw pictures to calm them down. Hoffman was looking for a book for his three year old son and could only find ‘stupid collections of pictures, and moralising stories’, so he created Struwwelpeter. It was one of the first picture books designed purely to please children – before then children’s books were mainly religious or moral lessons with titles such as An Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy Lives and Joyful Deaths of Several Young Children. Read more about ‘shock-headed’ Peter here.

‘The book has long oscillated between being accepted as harmless hilarity and being condemned as excessively horrifying’- Humphrey Carpenter

That touch of reality in a child’s life is a child’s comfort. The child gets the sense that this person who wrote this book knows about me and knows the world can be a troubling, incomprehensible place. Maurice Sendak

One of the world’s most treasured children’s book creators, Maurice Sendak, has died, aged 83 years. For me, his picture book Outside Over There is the essence of Sendak – haunting, comforting, uncompromising –  nobody else combined the real and the unreal so brilliantly. In a rare interview, Maurice Sendak talked about how his stories reflect ‘childhood as a very passionate, upsetting, silly, comic business’.  Outside Over There is a  tale of separation and siblings that features a creepy ice baby (pictured). Sendak’s books can also be exuberant (In the Night Kitchen) and even spiritual (Dear Mili). On teaching writing Sendak said:

I stress character, character, character. And for authors to go where you want; go where you will. Children will go everywhere.

I’m to become a grandfather this year (!) and I can’t wait to provide lots of lovely books. The best picture books are a marriage of text and illustration: they should both support and spark off each other. The plot should be focused for very young children and the pictures oddly comforting.  I Went Walking by Sue Williams is a perfect first book. The words are  extremely basic yet they incorporate repetition, questions, rhymes and humour. And the illustrations by Julie Vivas are sublime; leading the eye across the page in a dance of line, shape and colour. (See her gorgeous version of the Nativity too). 

Max’s Bath by Barbro Lindgren is another delightful book for preschoolers. Max dumps his toys and his food in the tub and then tries to bath the dog with predictable results. Max is a classic ‘terrible two year old’ combining the utmost charm and mischief.

The picture book Seasons by French artist Blexbolex is a unique, meditative book for young children that adults will relish for it’s design. It’s a tactile treat, printed in chunky hardback on rough paper, like the old comic annuals. Each page has a single word and a subtle image to illustrate it. No garish colours here, just the quiet passing of seasons.

After reading Wolfram’s dramatic story I discovered his daughter’s wonderful art. Alexandra Milton is an animal artist and children’s book illustrator. She creates her creatures by collage, using hand-made papers with mysterious names: Korean mingeishi, Thai silk thread, Himalayan khadi, and Payhembury marbled paper. Her honey bee illustration below is warm and characterful (like bees).

I aim to celebrate all that is to be marvelled at in nature; to catch, in colour and form, a glimpse of the miracle of creation Alexandra Milton

Picture books by Chris van Allsburg are not only beautifully illustrated; the stories are surreal and open to interpretation, which makes them ideal for both children and adults to explore. Jumanji and Mysteries of Harris Burdick are justly famous but my favourites are the most off-beat ones. Bad Day at Riverbend is a unique book about a black and white cowboy town attacked by crayon graffiti (above). In the postmodern ending the characters realise they are subjects in a colouring book. (Harold and the Purple Crayon was van Allsburg’s favourite book as a child). The Wretched Stone is set on a 19th century sailing ship, where a strange glowing stone makes the crew regress intellectually. The stone could be seen as a symbol of modern technology such as television.

Not another pirate picture book! Yes, but a beauty. Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (1939) is a masterpiece of illustration by the cult novelist Mervyn Peake (Gormenghast trilogy). The Captain appears to be a typical pirate, always threatening to chop the crew into mincemeat; but he’s experiencing a mid-life crisis. On a weird pink island he discovers ‘a creature as bright as butter’ who inspires the Captain to ‘drop out’ (I like that the NY Times review says the creature looks ‘like Bob Dylan with cocker-spaniel ears’.) Peake’s son, Fabian, comments that his father always wanted to be on an island ‘living a bohemian life free from the pressures of modern society’. See Peake’s incredible illustrations here.

John Howe’s version of Jack and the Beanstalk (1988) is the only one that truly captures the vertigo of the fairytale. His radical changes of angle and hyper-realism make this a the most exciting climb since Disney’s brilliant animation (1947).Worth a look too is Jon Scieszka’s brilliant design for Jack’s tale (in The Stinky Cheese Man). Here’s a fun article by him about why ‘Design Matters’ in picture books.

In The Crab With the Golden Claws (1940). Herge introduced one of literature’s best characters: Captain Haddock– and one of the most faithful friendships.  The drunken, cursing Captain is a perfect foil to the angelic Tintin. Herge hoped that some of Haddock’s frailties would rub off on Tintin, but as he wrote in a letter to Tintin,

…you took nothing from him, not even a tot of whisky. My wrist was seized by an Angel…

Read more…

Struwwelpeter (1845) by Dr. Heinrich Hoffman has gruesome rhymes about disobedience and its dire consequences. The creepiest tale is in The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb:

Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go

It sounds best in the original ‘klipp und klapp!’ of the German. Less well known is the Nazi parody version Struwwelhitler (1941). Read the full story here.

The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher is a classic picture book that almost didn’t make it. It took Molly Bang years to create it and was repeatedly rejected by publishers. They said it was ‘peculiar-looking’ and that ‘children won’t relate to an old woman as a protagonist’. The manuscript sat in a drawer for years then was re-worked. When it was finally published the reviews were pretty bad writes Molly Bang: ‘The New York Times that said that the weird-looking characters and flashy colors were an indication that I was part of the drug culture and the detailed pictures told no real story but were merely an excuse to show off.’ Then it won a Caldecott award and everything changed. Why? Because it’s a one-of-a-kind, off-the-wall book. And very creepy! I love the tiny fungi that grow where the Catcher has trod.

Draw to Live, Live to Draw –Wanda G’ag

This is Wanda G’ag (lovely bio here), one of the finest children’s book illustrators. Her masterpiece is Millions of Cats (1928) the story of a lonely old couple who attract ‘millions and billions and trillions of cats‘. The pictures flow like waves across the pages; clouds, trees, hills and cats all swept along in the flow of story. The black and white gives it that slightly unsettling folktale vibe. As a child I loved the army of cats drinking a pond in seconds, and the final catastrophic catscrap. Try to find her bizarre Nothing At All too, about an invisible dog. Here’s one of G’ag’s later lithographs (1940):

The classic picture book Calico the Wonder Horse — The Saga of Stewy Stinker by Virgina Lee Burton was published in 1941. I adored this comic-book style cowboy adventure as a child mainly because of the bad guy. Stewy Stinker is so low he steals Christmas presents from children but in the end he repents. This picture of him crying out his rottenness always fascinated me. The word ‘Stinker’ was censored from the title for 10 years, considered inappropriate for a children’s book. Burton was one of the great illustrators and the idea for Calico came after seeing her sons engrossed with comic books. The design, cartoon framing and action scenes are worthy of a modern graphic comic: the flash flood and stagecoach crash are highlights. But it’s the haunting image of Stewy that will stay with me.

Five years old and terrified of my first day at school. I sat on the hard grey mat and the teacher read Horton Hatches the Egg to the class. I became so engrossed I didn’t notice my mother slip out. My elephant hero, who suffered so much, helped me get through that day. Favourite Seuss characters: the spooky Pale Green Pants — genius. And in the ABC book, the Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz (why stop with one Z!).  Seuss used language to the limit: in Green Eggs and Ham he used a 50 word vocabulary list to create a classic. His first book was rejected 27 times.

One more for Banned Book Wk: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969). William Steig’s depiction of the police as pigs generated some heat and the book was banned in several states. The brilliantly absurd plot has Sylvester the young donkey trapped inside a boulder while his parents search frantically for him. It’s about a child’s fear of separation – perhaps Steig’s version of his favourite, Pinocchio, about a boy trapped inside a piece of wood. The ending is typical Steig: child reunited with loved ones in a frenzy of hugs and tears. When he was 15 young William ran away to sea after an argument with his father:

When I finally got home, my mom and dad hugged and kissed me and we all cried. We were a very emotional family.

Read the full article about William Steig and his books here.