Step by Step Drawing Book by Fiona Watts / Candice Whatmore, reviewed by Chitra Soundar

When I stumbled on The Step by Step Drawing Book by Fiona Watts, illustrated by Candice Whatmore, published by Usborne Books in a new independent bookshop called Bookasaurus in Melksham, Wiltshire, I thought it would be perfect for my 4 ½ year old nephew who loves to draw.

As I flipped through the pages I realised, it would be perfect for completely novice doodlers like me too. I bought a second copy so I needn't share mine with my nephew.

As a child, I never learnt to draw. But I was always a visual learner and loved illustrated books. One of the reasons I love reading picture books is that a lot can be told in pictures. If there was one thing I’d like to go back and fix if I ever got a time machine would be to learn the skill to draw, doodle, express myself in pictures. For now, I’m learning how to draw a time machine.

Until a few years ago, I never thought I could even attempt drawing. My skills were undeveloped and I knew about 4-5 things I learnt as a child that I could still draw. When my nephew was born and he liked drawing, I decided it was time to learn but this time I had company. I could draw with him. 

My Doodles of Things that go vroom..

I'm proud of this one I learnt to draw from Youtube.

Long story short, I’m still learning to draw and this book is perfect for me. It gives clear and simple instructions that can be followed by an expert 4-year old or a novice 40-year old. It has a selection of animals, people, things that go vroom… and more.

It’s a great book to share as a family and children can definitely get a sense of achievement drawing one thing at a time. And they have a lot of space on each page to practice until they get it right. Once they have learnt something, they can then go ahead and use that knowledge in a wider canvas - use it creatively to tell a story. That for me is a great reason for young people to use this book.

Although this book is part of a series where you can choose to draw lots of dinosaurs or lots of animals or different people, I like this one, which is an assortment of everything.

For an author like me who can’t draw, I’m hoping to practice some nice doodles so I can do them when signing books. So if you're like me and somehow grew into an adult who didn't learn drawing, there is no more any excuse not to learn.

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JUDITH KERR'S CREATURES - reviewed by Emma Barnes

“Once there was a little girl called Sophie, and she was having tea with her mummy in the kitchen...”

So begins Judith’s Kerr’s classic picture book The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Without ever setting out to learn it, I know the whole text off by heart. I doubt that I’m alone. When I went to see Judith Kerr at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, not only was the huge marquee packed to capacity with fans of all ages, but the Chair, Lindsay Fraser, revealed that when she worked in a bookshop, Kerr’s Tiger was the most stolen book. The reason – small children coming into the bookshop would immediately recognise it, and feel that this familiar and much loved story must belong to them.

Judith Kerr is ninety this year. She is the author of many fantastic and classic children’s books – from Mog the Forgetful Cat and its successors, to lightly fictionalised accounts for older children of her childhood as a refugee from Nazi Germany (When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and its sequels).

The Festival session marked the publication of Judith Kerr’s Creatures, a memoir of her life produced in glorious hardbook, packed with illustrations and other artwork. Kerr herself was immensely charming and gently funny, as she read a passage which celebrated her late husband, the television writer Nigel Kneale. It’s a cliché that behind every great man lies a great woman: and it was lovely (and moving) to hear this tribute to a husband who always supported his wife’s gifts, from encouraging her to take her first writing job, at the BBC, to providing vital help with the plot of Mog the Forgetful Cat. “Have her catch a burglar,” he suggested, when Judith said she needed an exciting finale for her book – and the rest is history.

There’s lots of fascinating material in the book, from the tale of how her father, theatre critic Alfred Kerr, was on Hitler’s blacklist, and fled Germany after a tip-off in 1933, to be followed by his family, to Judith Kerr’s experiences in war-time London, to her pioneering approach to her first picture books. (Inspired by Dr Seuss, she aimed to use only a limited vocabulary, and to never to have anything in the text that was already clear from the pictures.)

All of this is accompanied by marvellous images, from family photos, to childhood paintings, to the work she produced as an art student – even her designs for wallpaper.

For anyone interested in writing or illustrating children’s books this book is particularly special – and useful. For it includes the manuscript stories, roughs, and complete spreads for many of Judith’s books. It’s wonderful to see Mog, somehow completely herself, even in an early manuscript squiggle. But it is also a rare chance to actually understand how a picture book is constructed - how this creation of words and images really works.

It’s a wonderful book, one to dip into, treasure and keep close by you on the shelf.

Published by HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks ( 2013)

Review by Emma Barnes
www.emmabarnes.info

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