Tag Archives: Judy Watson

When You’re Older

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In stores from 1 March, 2022.

On the first of March When You’re Older will be in bookshops. Hurrah! And I’ll be in two of them on the same day, decorating the windows to celebrate the release of the book. I’ll be starting out at The Little Bookroom and then zipping across to Readings Kids.

I’m really happy with the cover. We went all over the place exploring cover options, including under the sea and up a tree. But this one feels right. The focus is squarely on those two faces. They’re the heart and soul of the book. (I admit I’m a bit infatuated with the chest of drawers, too.)

    Book designer Sandra Nobes did an amazing job with the typography. Her title lettering expresses the tall and short of our two characters, complete with small crown. And her selection of typeface for the creator names took inspiration from my hand-drawn letters and is a near perfect match with a few less curls. (You can see my curly writing above, with a baby seemingly floating over it!)

    If you’re thinking the book is about nappy changes, don’t be fooled by the box of tissues, although you might need one yourself. Perhaps, like me when I first picked up the manuscript, you’re thinking that the book will be about sibling rivalry. It’s not.

    Inspired by hopes for her own two children and interestingly by the imprisonment of journalist Peter Greste in 2013, Sofie Laguna’s words are about love and about brothers looking out for each other. About a big imagination. A big world. A big adventure and big danger.

    There are also lots of tiny things.

    One of the great joys of parenting small children for me, was the experience of reading aloud to them. I loved to witness their immersion in the world of each picture book; their interaction with the page as well as the story, fingers keenly pointing out the important parts, and often the tiny details. So while I was working on When You’re Older, I imagined little hands holding the book and little fingers pointing. Every lizard, butterfly and bird was made for this purpose. Every footprint in the snow.

    I think there will be much counting! How many birds can you find? How many bats? Ducks, lizards, butterflies? These small things are only footnotes to the main story, I know. But I am so looking forward to seeing some real fingers exploring the book.

    Please pop in and say hello if you’re in Melbourne on 1 March or in Mornington on 4 March. There will be signed books available to purchase. I’ll be the one with the paintbrushes and Posca pens, decorating the windows. And I look more or less like this.

    How many fishes can you spot?

    Searching for Cicadas

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    A book about summer and family… and cicadas of course

    Two books in one year is outrageous for me. I’m a slow cooker of books. Especially picture books. Each one is for me such a journey of discovery and striving and learning and change. So they emerge slowly.

    Portrait of the artist as a very young person, before I illustrated this book.

    But speaking of emergence, this is a book about cicadas… cicadas emerge slowly too! Some of them spend several years underground in their nymph form. One species spends seventeen years underground, which is longer than I have ever taken to illustrate a book… thankfully. Then they dig their way up into the light, shed their outer casing, dry their wings and sing a song to the summer. The boys do, anyway. And I’ll bet not many people know that they cover their ears when they are singing so that they don’t deafen themselves. Lesley taught me that.

    The skeletal pencil and ink background of a spread from Searching for Cicadas
    Ghostly shadows of the child figure for the same spread
    The spread with colour and characters added

    There are so many bits of fascinating information in Lesley Gibbes‘s text. And there are more than insects here too. There’s a narrative featuring a grandfather and child who go looking for cicadas on an overnight camping trip. And that is what I call fun.

    Dirt and pine needles between the toes. Nothing beats bare feet.

    Cicadas, summer and grandparents go together like cheese and biscuits. There’s something about these wonderfully noisy creatures (the cicadas, not the grandparents) that fascinates adults and children alike, and while we are sharing our fascination, we share a time, that later becomes a treasured memory. It did for me. I remember holding cicadas on my hand and collecting the empty shells (exoskeletons) and attaching them to the front of my clothes by their hooky little feet. They looked very decorative, along with the ripe cherry earrings hanging from my ears.

    summer days in the country with my brother and Mum. I have no cherry earrings on in this photo.
    Soundtrack: cicadas, magpies

    I consider myself lucky to have been offered the opportunity to illustrate a Nature Storybook for Walker Books. It’s a series that I’ve admired for a long time. It features a double layer of text; story and scientific fact alongside one another in a child-friendly format. There are quite a few in the series, all beautiful. (I’d love to own an original painting from Dingo by Claire Saxby and Tannya Harricks. And check out Tannya’s dog paintings!)

    Camping with Pa: bliss!
    Soundtrack: cicadas, magpies

    A few years ago I did quite a bit of illustration work for Museum Victoria where I got a taste for illustrating New Things That I Knew Nothing About. You research, scribble, take notes, panic, draw, draw again until you get it right… or right enough. (It’s never perfect.) This was a bit like that. It was really satisfying to learn to draw a cicada. I’m not confident I’d be able to draw a convincing one now, but for a few moments in time, I could do it.

    This was my favourite cicada. He didn’t make the cut. I think it was because he had just a bit too much personality for a non-fiction title. He is my little friend.

    And best of all was illustrating the Australian bush and the leaf litter. It made me want to make great big paintings of leaf litter.

    Me with my grandfather, the irrepressible Pop Worrall who wasn’t with us for long enough. We never went camping but we did lots of swimming together.