I had the joy of illustrating Lucy and the Paper Pirates by Pat Hutchins, author of the timeless classics Rosie's Walk and The Wind Blew.
Lucy and the Paper Pirates is a warm and funny adventure, full of characters that literally come to life. Lucy loves to cut out characters from her favourite comics and put them in her biscuit barrel for safe keeping until bed time. When Lucy opens the lid, a cast of riotous characters tumble out onto her duvet causing mayhem and fun and it’s up to Lucy to sort them out.
This was such a fun illustration challenge - how to draw two dimensional paper characters that felt alive and animated! Well, I did the only thing that made sense to me - to be a bit like Lucy! I decided to make and cut out all my own paper characters and set them up in scenes from the story. I have Included the photograph of my cut outs for the cover to show you how I did it.
What Clara Saw, published by Macmillan, was nominated for the Greenaway Medal 2020.
“Meserve has a way with illustration. Her child characters are hugely differentiated, personalities zinging from the page, and she holds an astounding attention to detail – the shoelaces of the children like little wings, the crafting of the teacher, Mr Biggity, as condescending, before the reader has even read a word. Is it his long nose, his large nostril, the upturn of his toe, his hand positioning, the way his eye glances back at the children. He’s going to be tricky.
And thus it proves, on an outing to a wildlife park, Mr Biggity dismisses the animals as being vastly inferior, when Clara, with the red coat, notices that animals are rather good at communicating and feeling. The reader will notice how observant Clara is, and if they too are observant, they’ll witness a whole other story just by ‘reading the pictures’ rather than listening to the text. A book that encourages thought and debate about how much animals feel, and perhaps even about how much we should stand up for what we believe to be true rather than being mindlessly fed false information. Exquisite illustrations.“
Minerva Reads
Beyond the Burrow, published by Macmilan, has been printed in many languages including French, German, Dutch, Portugese and Turkish. It is also published in the USA by Peachtree Publishing.
A warm and witty story of courage, kindness . . . and carrots!
The big, wide world can seem daunting – especially when it’s full of different-looking creatures. But does big, clawed and hairy have to mean scary? And is there a rabbit brave enough to find out?
This is a picture book in development that I have been working on collaboratively with the author. A storm takes a little girl and her family on a tumultuous, life-lifting adventure.
Currently unpublished, this is a picture book idea in progress.
Rose Too is inspired by my younger daughter's deeply felt desire to be exactly like her sister.
This is a narrative sequence inspired my fidgety daughter.
This is a narrative sequence based on observational drawing of my two daughters.
