Q&A with Jane Godwin and Anna Walker

You’ve worked on 10 picture books together over 16 years – tell us how your collaboration first began?

Jane: In 2007, during the time I was a publisher at Penguin, Anna visited the office to show us her folio. I loved her illustrations and we made an offer for Anna’s Ollie books, but we were too late, and Scholastic beat us to it! 

I kept thinking about Anna’s beautiful, emotive and child-centred illustrations, and I had recently written the text for Little Cat and the Big Red Bus, so I sent it to Anna and asked if she would be interested in illustrating it. I’ll let Anna tell the rest of this story!

Anna: I remember as if it was yesterday, being perched on the couch in the sunlight of 2007, holding a yellow envelope with the manuscript of Little Cat and the Big Red Bus written by Jane Godwin. I could hardly believe I had been asked to illustrate such a beautiful story. I felt like it had been written for me with ‘Little Cat’ being the ‘smallest on the bus’. The story had a truth and such moving words, which I came to know was Janie. After the initial excitement though I had a panic about not being able to draw a bus! Thankfully both Penguin and Janie seemed to believe I could and when the book was finished, I felt proud of the illustrations, including the bus!

What is your usual process when you work on a book together?

Jane: I’ll write some drafts of the story and play around with it/think about it (often for months) until I feel it’s ready to show to Anna. I’ll send it to her and wait with bated breath for her response! It’s always such a thrill once I know we are setting off on a new adventure together to create our next book. We’re lucky because we live in the same city, so we have the luxury of meeting up in person regularly while we’re in the process of making a book. Anna will show me storyboards and roughs, I’ll send her endless new drafts of the story, and often we will make little dummy books along the way, reading them out loud and refining text and illustration as we go. An editor and designer come on board and complete the team.

Anna: It’s always exciting to be setting off on a book adventure with Janie! Apart from enjoying creating rough storyboards and experimenting with colour, catching up and talking about the characters with Janie and discussing life is an important part of our process.  I feel lucky to make books with a dear friend. 

Jane, what was the inspiration that first sparked the idea of Eddie and Moo?

Like all stories, this one came together from various threads in my life. 

I was chatting with a friend’s daughter several years ago. Four-year-old Saskia’s birthday was coming up, and she told me she was going to receive what I heard as ‘A garden of presents’. I thought, what a wonderful gift! And I immediately imagined some kind of beautiful, almost magical field or garden. Saskia had in fact said, ‘A card and a present’ and I had misheard her.Another friend has a farm and every year, one of their paddocks fills with wild daffodils – they think originally planted many generations ago. I have held an image of this untamed, spontaneous beauty, and the wonder it brings to the children in that family. Originally I imagined the garden of presents in the book as a field of either daffodils or sunflowers, but I love the way Anna imagined it more as a wild meadow, and I think that suits the story better!A delight in my life are my own grandchildren, and this story is also inspired by their unique personalities, their own life pleasures, and the joy and meaning in our simple wanderings together. My grandson and I created a collage one day and he announced that the character was called Bad Princess Dinosaur - which I loved, and it felt like a synthesis of three-year-old Eddie's preoccupations at the time - fairytales (the archetypal characters, powerful stories and strong emotions!), dinosaurs, and concepts of ‘good' and ‘bad'. I showed this picture to Anna, and it immediately captured her imagination and she something to me about this being the beginning of our next collaboration. And the seed was sown!The natural world is a vital part of my life and my creative process, so it also feels like the characters’ joy of the outdoors is a reflection of my own.

Anna, what led to the wonderfully child-like style of illustrations that you’ve created for Eddie and Moo and what mediums and techniques have you used? How is this different from your earlier books with Jane?

With the story being inspired by Eddie’s ‘Bad Princess Dinosaur’ collage, I wanted to imbue the illustrations with a sense of the energy and delight Janie’s grandchildren bring! Initially I began to create the imagery in ink but quickly moved to ‘monoprinting’ which is a process that is by its nature ‘playful’. The results often revealing a surprise! The technique of monoprinting allowed me to work intuitively, as there was rough to trace or adhere to. With experimentation I discovered textures that bring warmth, and the brushstrokes in the sticky printing ink, gave a sense of a movement to the characters as they hop about on their adventure. 

Jane, has becoming a grandmother influenced or changed the way you look at picture books?

I’d have to say not really in any profound way, although being regularly immersed in their world has allowed me to feel with every sense the close-up presence and personalities of young children again. 

I suppose it has also reinforced for me that children are as different as adults are different, and they have different tastes and responses to picture books (and to everything else!).

I do feel that I have always had an innate sense of the emotional world of young children, probably because I don’t feel very different from when I was a young child myself. For better or for worse, I can still sense the interiority of childhood – and that’s possibly why I am a writer for children! So while having grandchildren is an absolute joy in my life and brings so much richness, pleasure and meaning, it hasn’t really changed the way I look at picture books – except maybe I’ve become even more passionate in my love and belief in quality picture books!