The creation of Tiddler
Alison Green, of Alison Green Books at Scholastic, gives us the inside story on how the next fabulous picture book from the creators of The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, came into being
'When the text for Tiddler was emailed to me by Julia's agent I ran around the office excitedly showing it to lots of people - it was such a lovely surprise!' enthuses Alison. She has been the editor of many of Julia and Axel's books, including The Gruffalo, The Snail and the Whale and Room on the Broom, and the exhilaration of working with such a talented duo still hasn't worn off.
'Julia and I had talked about doing another book but we hadn't set a deadline, so I was thrilled when it arrived,' she said.
Working with such a well-known, best-selling author is less of a risk to a publisher than introducing a new author to the market, so it didn't take long to agree a contract. It also made a lot of sense to ask Axel Scheffler to do the illustrations for the new book. 'Axel's style is quite classical so the book almost feels as if you've seen it before. His illustrations and Julia's text are a perfect match - and that is why their books are so successful' Alison says.
Word perfect
'Julia is a perfectionist, she likes to work on a rhyme until she is sure it works, so the text for Tiddler was word perfect when she sent it to me. The only thing we had to change was the name of a fish. Julia had used lionfish and dragonfish and we realised that these are two different names for the same thing - so lionfish became leopardfish instead. All the named fish in Tiddler really do exist - yes, even rabbitfish and sunfish! Julia used a wonderful ancient book with beautifully-illustrated pictures of all the different types of fish. From this she made lists of fish names and split them into lists of different syllables before she started on the rhyme,' Alison explains. But look out for Axel's artistic licence, children will love spotting the Gruffalofish as it chases Tiddler round a rock!
A strange reality
The next job for Alison and her designers was to put together a scrapbook of visual images for Axel and send him this along with the text. 'Axel liked the story as soon as he read it but he was a bit nervous about illustrating this one. It certainly provided challenges, for example, how do you make it look as though fish are in a schoolroom, how does a skate take the register, what should they have for lunch - do we keep it as real as possible or give them lunchboxes?' Alison quizzes. 'It is really tricky to animate animals without arms and legs, but Axel is a genius - so he's done it! He likes to keep things realistic as far as possible, so was concerned that although all the fish are real, they wouldn't necessarily all live in the same part of the ocean. We had to come to the conclusion that Miss Skate was such a good teacher that the parent fish had moved to the catchment area for her school!' Alison admits: 'Sometimes we find ourselves having very strange conversations!'
Between the lines
Then comes the important decision on how to place the text on the pages. 'We need to choose where the page turns will be. When I first looked at the text I had 20 page turns - which is too many for a 32-page book, we need just 15 double-page spreads. Once we know which text will be on each page, then we make choices about what to illustrate' explains Alison.
'Axel has a huge input at this stage and he adds fantastic incidental details that add another layer of depth to the book.
Keeping the pace
'Once Axel has completed his roughs, they are scanned and put together with the text to show to Julia. We look at the pagination and Julia helps us achieve the right pace of the book. She has strong feelings about where the rhyme is broken by a page turn, if it happens at the wrong place then the flow and rhythm of the story can be lost.
'We also have to be careful to include a mixture of whole page pictures, vignettes and double page spread images to help to keep the pace of the book. It's a bit like making a film, making sure you have a balance of long shots and close ups. This was quite tricky for Tiddler as there are a lot of small pictures to include with all the different types of fish. Also, the scene of the schoolroom is featured quite a lot, so it was a challenge to keep ringing the visual changes.'
Finishing touches
'When we are all happy with the way the words and illustrations are fitting together, the pages are handed to the designer to scan and put into publishing programs. It is checked and double checked before going to print. Meanwhile the marketing and publicity teams have been busy making sure that the launch of Tiddler makes a huge splash!'
Surprisingly, at no stage did Axel, Julia and Alison sit around a table together. With Julia based in Scotland - but on a world tour for four months - and Axel in London, Alison is the linchpin. So, although she modestly says, 'I feel like a charlatan saying I'm their editor because I don't really do very much', you get the feeling that she is the webbed feet of the swan, paddling furiously under the water to make it glide graciously along.
Did you know?
The American version of Tiddler is called The Fish who cried Wolf because Tiddler doesn't carry the meaning of 'little one' in America!
Tiddler is being published in 15 different languages. Axel handwrites the title for the cover of each one, so he has had to learn how to write in everything from Welsh to Greek, Finnish to Korean!
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