About
Mem has said her inspiration for this text was the giant turnip story, but when I received this story my first thought was of Winnie the Pooh. In one story, he gets stuck in Rabbit’s doorway because he has eaten too much honey. I’m thinking of the original books by A.A.Milne, illustrated by E.H. Shepard, not the Disney movie where all kinds of other improbable things happen as well. Led by Christopher Robin, all the characters get in line to pull Pooh out, from largest to smallest, and they eventually succeed and out he pops.
As well as working on children’s books, I am a cartoonist, drawing funny pictures for adults. My cartoons often feature giraffes, elephants, zebras and monkeys, doing all manner of things. With their incredible individual shapes and markings, these animals are wonderful to draw and it was great to have the opportunity to create them as characters in a picture book, adding in as much warmth and humour as I could
One of the challenges was fitting such differently sized animals on the pages together, which I dealt with by playing with the contrasts of big/small and near/far as much as I could. And I made the animals’ expressions as different as possible, showing their exasperation building. I am particularly proud of the giraffe’s posture and expression, as she tries harder and harder. I also decided to put in clues as to what animal would come next, to create a sense of anticipation. I wanted to make the journey to Meerkat’s eventual release as fun as possible, even though it was understandably a bit traumatic for Meerkat himself.
“The bright, clean design, hilarious animal expressions and posturing, and strategic cropping of some bodies to show only a leg or tail enhance the story by encouraging children to predict who might appear next. The scale of the big animals compared to the small Meerkat and Bird positions the reader to ‘become’ these latter characters: one cheeky and troublesome, the other helpful. An interactive tale that invites children aged 3+ ‘inside’ the story to help solve the dilemma” Joy Lawn, Books & Publishing
Reviews
‘Mem Fox and Judy Horacek, the dream team behind the popular picture book Where Is the Green Sheep? (now celebrating its 20th anniversary), have a new collaboration that is also likely to become a contemporary classic.’
Reviewed by Joy Lawn, Books & Publishing. Read the full review here:Books & Publishing