{"id":103,"date":"2012-01-27T16:35:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T05:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/?page_id=103"},"modified":"2012-01-27T21:55:13","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T10:55:13","slug":"lauren-child-interview","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/interviews\/lauren-child-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Child Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney, October 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lauren Child and friend<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lauren Child was in Australia for a publicity tour and the bi-annual Children’s Book Council of Australia<\/a> conference. I interviewed her in her hotel room overlooking Sydney’s Botanical Gardens. The interview was published in Good Reading Magazine<\/a> in January 2004. This is the full transcript of our conversation. <\/strong><\/p>\n

_________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

I first came across Clarice Bean in a bookshop I was working in at the time, and I hadn\u2019t heard of you, hadn\u2019t heard any pre-publicity, and so I came to Clarice Bean completely fresh, and I can remember standing in the bookshop, just laughing out loud and being utterly charmed and delighted by this really fresh approach to a picture book. I\u2019ve been reading your history with art school and design work and so on with interest. I was interested that at art school they didn\u2019t teach you the fundamentals of book design, like gutters and that kind of thing, because what strikes me about \u2014 you know how people say about writing and so on you need to know the rules to break the rules? There\u2019s something really fresh about your books \u2014 you seem to really understand how a book works, because you\u2019ve taken it apart and put it back together again\u2026 Starting the story before the imprint page, playing with design and so on. I\u2019m interested in how you came to that approach.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part of it maybe is not knowing all the rules.<\/p>\n

Not being bound?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. I wasn\u2019t taught any of that stuff, which I do think you should be taught. Generally it would be helpful.<\/p>\n

Well, it is teachable, as you\u2019ve said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. But perhaps not knowing it means you fumble your way through it and you get something different. I think maybe also I wrote, I\u2019d tried writing before and publishers were always saying \u201cwrite a little bit more like this or a little bit more like that\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

More conventionally? More plot based?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was ages ago when I was trying to write the story, and they have a very\u2026 I can see why it happens, they don\u2019t really want to take a big risk on somebody new, and nobody wants to publish something that won\u2019t sell, so it makes sense that they want you to write a little bit like somebody else before, but I found it very difficult, because I was always trying to write something that would fit in with what they wanted. In the end I wrote Clarice Bean<\/em>, which was a long time after I had written things in my early twenties, and nothing got through and I\u2019d given up on the idea. And then really because I wanted to maybe come up with a character that could be used in animation or product design\u2026<\/p>\n

So you had that idea quite early on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019d given up on the idea of being an illustrator or a writer. It was really a means to an end, to get into something else, so perhaps that made me approach the whole writing thing in a different way, I wasn\u2019t all that interested in that side of it. I just started writing about a character, rather than trying to make a very plot-based story book.<\/p>\n

And was there some resistance from publishers to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I just kind of wrote and wrote, and then I knew very much how I wanted the book to look, so I set it all up, I did some sample spreads, and I went and worked with a graphic designer friend of mine, and we made all the type move in the way I wanted it too, and came up with the different fonts for each character.<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask you about the fonts\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

So that was right at the beginning, I decided all those things. So then I put the two things together, so I\u2019ve got the picture and I\u2019ve done overlays of the text, so you could see how it would integrate with the pictures.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a couple of questions I wanted to ask you about that. First of all I was going to make the comment that the convention about children\u2019s books is that they\u2019re really strong on plot, that children\u2019s books are the last bastion of plot. You\u2019ve proved that that doesn\u2019t always have to be the case, although as for instance the Clarice Bean books have gone on the plot has become more fore-grounded, and then you\u2019ve gone to the novel, which is something we\u2019ll get back to. So that interests me. But also, in terms of the overall conception of the book \u2014 when I first read your books, it took me quite a while to realise \u2014 I\u2019m not a visual person \u2014 but it took me a really long time to notice the detail of your books. I didn\u2019t realise at first that they were collage, I didn\u2019t sort of consciously notice, even though I know that Marcie\u2019s got all the photos of boys in her room and so on, but it took me a while to actually see the different layers that you\u2019ve built up there with text and drawings and photographs and then the fonts. There\u2019s a real coherence to the books. It reminds me of, when I was at uni I was in a drama group, and there was a fellow I\u2019d been to high school with who turned up at a performance and he\u2019d become a makeup artist, a theatrical artist, and he said to me, \u201cIf people say to me after a performance, the makeup was great, I know I\u2019ve failed, because they shouldn\u2019t notice it.\u201d I feel that way a little bit about your books, like I didn\u2019t notice at first all the different\u2014 because they work together so well. So I\u2019m just wondering how you conceive of all of those disparate elements. Do they sort of naturally fall together, or do you work with one element at a time, like text and then\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I think they just come, I think it\u2019s a \u2014 while I\u2019m writing, I\u2019ll get a visual thing in my head of how the illustration should look like. Marcie\u2019s room was one of those ones where I had very strong feelings that I wanted it to look a bit like a teenage magazine. So you\u2019ve got that feeling that, yeah, you\u2019re in her room and you kind of know what her room looks like, but some of it you know isn\u2019t really there. It\u2019s quite abstract in a way because it\u2019s laid out like a magazine, and I left that picture right to the end that I had such a sure feeling of how I wanted it to be I kind of felt like I couldn\u2019t do it. And it was one of those ones where I dreaded it because I thought, oh it\u2019s just not going to come out, and it was one of those that just did come out exactly, it wasn\u2019t this awful thing trying to get down on paper what I wanted. That\u2019s the funny thing about illustration. Sometimes it really happens exactly how you want it to, sometimes it doesn\u2019t, you can\u2019t get it across and I would change things, and you keep changing them\u2026<\/p>\n

So do you start with a pretty fixed picture in your head of how it should look?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s usually quite a blurry vision! And you think, yeah, I sort of know how I want that to look. You have something in your mind\u2019s eye, and you kind of think, it\u2019s going to work, and then sometimes just getting it down on paper is just impossible. Or sometimes you do exactly what you thought was going to work, and it doesn\u2019t, it just doesn\u2019t quite look the same, and you\u2019ll redo it and redo it. The last spread of That Pesky Rat, it was exactly that, where I had this kind of vision of how I wanted the old man and the rat to be sitting in front of the fire in a sort of quite gothic way, I suppose, having a little cup of tea together. And it suddenly didn\u2019t make any sense to do that, because I looked back at all the other images, and the writing, and it suddenly all became about looking into windows, that this is about a character who\u2019s spent his whole life yearning to have a home, and he\u2019s always looking in, and he finally wants to look out, so I changed it, because I felt he had to be sitting in a window of his own with this man, his new owner. And that\u2019s where you were going to get the cosy feeling from, that he\u2019s finally made it. So things like that happen all the time. I would say sometimes I\u2019ve got a very clear idea of what I want, but you don\u2019t always get that in the end. I mean, illustration is such an odd thing, and I usually dread starting because there\u2019s so much disappointment involved, because you\u2019re trying to get something that you can\u2019t always get. And at other times its such a surprise and it just happens.<\/p>\n

I think sometimes, too, people underestimate \u2014 if you\u2019ve got a more cartoony style, for want of a better word, it looks so spontaneous and fresh and quick and easy, but that\u2019s not the case at all, is it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s not. I think people \u2014<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re doing it well it looks fresh and spontaneous and easy!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, you definitely want it to look like that. But I think people find it very hard to understand visual things in a way, because\u2014 I was debating with my\u2026<\/p>\n

Your minder?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My minder, who is the head of Orchard, and we were just talking about that whole thing, and I was saying how I definitely feel illustration is not considered as important as writing.<\/p>\n

I think you\u2019re right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I definitely think that. She doesn\u2019t feel that, because Orchard is the only publishing house that I\u2019ve worked for that treats the designer as the editor. I think they\u2019re really good at getting that right.<\/p>\n

I wanted to ask you about the design of the books. The Clarice Bean books \u2014 Anna Louise Billson is credited as the designer on the imprint page, but the other books don\u2019t have anybody credited. I was wondering about your relationship with the designer. I\u2019m sure it varies from book to book and publisher to publisher\u2026 You did refer to that earlier, when you were starting out with the first book, you worked with a graphic designer friend. Do you consider the designer an editor in a way, like an editor who edits your text?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s a very similar job. What I would do with my roughs, and certainly with that first Clarice Bean, because\u2014 it wasn\u2019t exactly my first book, but it was the first book I wrote\u2026 things like\u2026 if you saw the original for something like that\u2026 (indicates a spread) it would be pretty similar. This (Clarice twirling in the garden) is different because (the designer) had to reorder that because I had that (the text) moving around much more. I think that she felt we shouldn\u2019t do that. But things like this one, this looks almost just the same. Basically with this one (Clarice twirling), things got toned down more, because I\u2019d done things like when she\u2019s says about twirling, and I\u2019d done this so it was twirling, but it wasn\u2019t logical enough, and things like this, I wanted to have the argument in between them\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh yes! Divide them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It would make more sense, but because of the gutter it was just getting tricky, and that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t do it in the end. Here I\u2019d had all the words falling out of his pockets\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s got a similar effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that sort of thing of \u2014 I think, it was one of the first books that I worked on, things like that had stayed and things like the writing being scrunched up, but it was sort of a lesson for me in toning down.<\/p>\n

OK! But on the other hand you\u2019ve said you\u2019re going to be doing some new books with Penguin and you want to try new things there.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, in different ways. I guess when I\u2019m doing a rough of something like this then I will usually do that on the computer, so I can see what it looks like, because now I\u2019ve got to know my designers so well \u2014<\/p>\n

And they you\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I can send them a much rougher thing, but with a book like this, I was working with a different designer on this, it was great, but I\u2019ll generally do it as a visual note to myself rather than to her, so I did spend quite a long time\u2026<\/p>\n

And do you do that on the computer\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something like that I did do, because I needed to know if it was going to work, whereas when I was first doing these books, I needed to know that she understood what I meant, and then once you\u2019ve dome a couple of books you have a kind of shorthand between you, so it\u2019s not a problem.<\/p>\n

How many of the fonts have you created specifically for the books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, we\u2019ve just used\u2014 I\u2019d love to do our own fonts, but we haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The one that made me wonder was in Who\u2019s Afraid of the Big Bad Book<\/em>, I think it\u2019s when Herb\u2019s in Little Bear\u2019s bed, he\u2019s in a bed anyway, it\u2019s a quilted bed, and the letters have stitches\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh! That\u2019s true! I think that my designer, David, did that.<\/p>\n

OK!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think he did. He adapted one\u2026<\/p>\n

That one made me think, I wonder if they invented that one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think he did in fact.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s a very close relationship, working with the designer, then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s always really close. With that book particularly, we both spent hours doing that, where I didn\u2019t just pencil in how I wanted it, I literally did put it in. It would have been the correct font, but that one, particularly that spread, because there\u2019s so much text\u2026 I can\u2019t actually do the illustration until I know that the text is going to fit in, because \u2014 I don\u2019t have a copy of it (Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book<\/em>) \u2014 That was a really hard book, because I wanted you to feel like you were right in there, so it\u2019s meant to look like, obviously it\u2019s meant to look like you\u2019re in the page, and so you can\u2019t have it all abstract like this, because he\u2019s actually going into the room, and everything, and it\u2019s a very traditional fairy tale book. So therefore everywhere is wood panelling or carpets or quilts or whatever, so I did have to go through everything making sure I\u2019d left enough space for all the text, which is why a lot of that I did do just by laboriously glueing it all in and then sending it to him, and then he would have to rework everything.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bit of a tradition of the fractured fairy tale. Did you feel daunted about trying to do something fresh with that? Because I think you have\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t really. I had this idea in my head \u2014 it was really all to do with this little boy who\u2019d read my book I Want a Pet<\/em>. He was really small, and his mother had relayed this thing that he\u2019d said after they\u2019d finished reading the book, he said \u201cWill you take the book out of my room\u201d and she said \u201cWhy?\u201d \u201cBecause there\u2019s a lion in the book.\u201d And that had given me the idea of the story before. It\u2019s a really simple idea but I hadn\u2019t thought about it. And so I came up with that and wrote that. I was going to write it just as any old story, I was going to make something up, and I just thought, Oh, if you make something up, about an ogre or whatever, then the kid hasn\u2019t got any \u2014 you\u2019re having to explain the story, which hasn\u2019t got a reference about the story that you\u2019ve got with an ogre in it, and that it\u2019s much easier to come up with something like little red riding hood, because they already know about the wolf and what the wolf does, and you don\u2019t have to explain. And so that\u2019s why I used the fairy tale. It wasn\u2019t really intentional.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s a really common experience. As a teenager, I went through a period of reading horror and ghost stories, and I buried the books, so I wouldn\u2019t wake up in the night and see the cover and give myself a fright, so even older kids have that experience. That\u2019s interesting, because that\u2019s two kids now that have sparked off a book; there was the little girl in Denmark who inspired Lola, who\u2019s fabulous\u2026 What interests me about Charlie and Lola is that the books are about Lola, but Charlie tells the story. I wondered how you came to that decision, to have Charlie be the narrator.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how it happened. I wanted to do something where it was just children\u2019s voices. I had this really strong feeling about siblings and how they relate to each other, because I think as a child you do spend an awful lot of time with people your own age. I had two sisters and a lot of our time was spent squabbling or paying or whatever, and so I thought it would be nice to do a book where actually that\u2019s all you see. You don\u2019t see the parents. They\u2019re referred to but you don\u2019t see them.<\/p>\n

I was interested that early on in your career you were directed to write about animals because kids like animals. But there seems to me to be a great strength in your books about families, about those familial relationships with Charlie and Lola and of course Clarice\u2019s family. It strikes me that families are quite a strong point in your books, about those dynamics and so on. Even That Pesky Rat<\/em> is about finding a family.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it is. I\u2019ve always been much more interested in the ordinary things that happen in your life that are funny, and I was always more interested in the forms of TV series where you had something extraordinary happening in the ordinary ? of your life. A film like Freaky Friday I loved, because \u2014 a domestic somehow \u2014 and so things which are about magic where it doesn\u2019t really relate to my home life never really appealed to me quite so much. So watching something like “I Dream of Jeannie”, where you can imagine, oh, how would it be if you actually did have your own little genie\u2026 and how it relates to you\u2026<\/p>\n

So fantasies that existed within the real world would have appealed rather than, say, Narnia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, it does really, although I loved those books, but I liked them more when they\u2026 I guess I liked the first one the most because they were surprised by it. I love Woody Allen, because he\u2019s always talking about very, very usual things in life, they don\u2019t go off into mad fantasy, they tend to be more about conversation. And in some ways nothing really happens.<\/p>\n

Well, conversation, that goes on to voice. The voice of\u2026 well, again, it\u2019s interesting, because Lola\u2019s kind of channelled through Charlie, although Charlie\u2019s a good character in his own right, a lovely character in his own right, he\u2019s so kind of, I don\u2019t know, stoic almost!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

But Lola and Clarice both have really particular voices. I particularly notice with Clarice, and I think you\u2019ve developed it in the novel, because obviously you\u2019ve got room to, there\u2019s a kind of a wonderful blend of how kids really talk, like she says something about her \u201cbest thing\u201d, and I was showing you the magazine where I work. We get letters from the kids, and they talk about their \u201cbest story\u201d or their \u201cbest..\u201d, you know, rather than their \u201cfavourite\u201d, so I thought that was a really well observed \u2014 children\u2019s usage of language. There\u2019s also her, kind of, appropriation of language, that she\u2019s heard adults say which she doesn\u2019t always quite get on the mark, it\u2019s almost the right context to use it, and then there\u2019s her own language\u2026 Are you a listener? Do you people watch?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I do, I do. I mean, I think adults say as many funny things like that as children. You hear it a lot. My sister does a bit, in fact, where she\u2019ll get the words wrong, and I\u2019m sure I do it all the time. And if you listen to people, their voice pattern, the way they construct their sentences can be very charming. I heard a friend of mine, it was just a slip, he\u2019s a really great guy, and he\u2019d been very ill, and someone said to him, how are you now? And he said, well, it\u2019s all worth it for that, the adolescence makes it all worth it. I just loved it, he didn\u2019t notice he\u2019d said it. You get this kind of really brilliant thing where people put things together in such a funny way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like a fraction off, and yet it works.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s very funny. I remember I phoned my aunt. She was staying with her nieces, little girls, and I phoned her and I said, Oh, I\u2019m just ringing up to say hello, how are you, and she said, Oh, well! A bit tired. We were up looking for spiders at two o\u2019clock this morning. She meant that the children had obviously woken up in the night and there was a spider, and she had to get up, but it sounded like they\u2019d all been up just looking for spiders as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do.<\/p>\n

Clarice does that all the time, she repeats things her father says in the business context, but out of that context, and so \u2014 they\u2019re almost clich\u00e9s that people rattle off without thinking, but when you put them in her mouth they become \u2014 well, funny, but also quite pointed sometimes. Did it come quite easily, her voice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I just kind of wrote, and I didn\u2019t really know what age she was when I was writing, but I\u2019d drawn a few sketches of her, but I just kind of wrote and wrote and wrote and little bits about each family member. So this is pretty much how it was. I edited out I think two pages on her father and one ended up being in What Planet Are You From\u2026<\/em> because I wanted to put in that whole bit about him cooking, but it wasn\u2019t really appropriate for this book. And I\u2019d written something about her mother and what she used to before she became a mother, and I\u2019ve never used that. I might do. I really want to. Most of it, it was just pages, like this, and I gave it to an editor, I\u2019d taken it round to several people and they all for one reason or another didn\u2019t feel they could publish it. Then I gave it to one editor and she really wanted to do it and what she did was, she just switched round the passages of text. Because they were all written on separate pieces of paper, so \u201cI want to put this here, this here and this here. What you\u2019ve got is a kind of quest for peace and quiet.\u201d So it\u2019s less just like, you know, anecdotes, it actually makes sense of something. And then I just had to write the ending for it, which is when I came up with some of \u2014this \u2014 had been written, but it wasn\u2019t at an ending, and she suggested I write a bit more about that and make that the ending. And then in the end she couldn\u2019t publish it, but it really helped. It showed me how you can actually use what you\u2019ve done and regroup it.<\/p>\n

Well, that extra eye looking at it\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. It\u2019s really interesting. I was always a bit daunted because I suppose plot\u2019s not really my thing, probably because I\u2019m not all that interested in it, but you do need something.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve written a novel which does have much more in the way of a plot, with the mystery of Betty Moody\u2019s disappearance, and the book project and K? and is he going to come through with the goods and so on, and Mrs Wilberton! I mean, I\u2019m an ex-teacher and I sometimes feel a bit, you know, defensive on teacher\u2019s parts, but she\u2019s such a wonderful creation. You know, it reminds me a little bit, and I think there\u2019s a bit of a \u2014 I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s like I was saying about all the Lemony Snicket type books\u2026 I don\u2019t know if you know Angela Anaconda? The teacher in that reminds me a bit of Mrs Wilberton.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was actually quite worried about that, because I\u2019d written Mrs Wilberton, and then I\u2019d had all that, and I thought, oh no!<\/p>\n

But those things happen all the time\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have to have your kind of ogre person, and \u2014 both my parents are teachers, so I didn\u2019t feel that bad about doing it.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not despicable.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not completely unjust and vicious and malicious, she\u2019s just fed up!<\/strong><\/p>\n

She\u2019s fed up, but she\u2019s also uninspired. I actually got the idea for her \u2014 I was watching a documentary which was following a class of seven years olds, that transition from the infants into the juniors, and the children actually get\u2014 I can\u2019t really remember that feeling of how scary that is, when you\u2019re going up a level, and they feel terribly grown up suddenly, and they don\u2019t feel they can cope with the work, and they kept talking about it all the time, it\u2019s too hard, and you\u2019re thinking, oh, you don\u2019t know you\u2019re born! But of course when you\u2019re that age, it\u2019s really daunting how much you\u2019ve got to learn, and it all feels terribly important. Anyway, there was a woman in it who was rather like Mrs Wilberton, who was a real, kind of \u2014<\/p>\n

Been there too long\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, all the time she was droning on at them. There was this real chatterbox called Roland in the classroom, all the time he got it in the arm. The whole thing of her just going on and on. I played it to my mum, and I said what do you think about her, and she said well, she\u2019s an old bully, isn\u2019t she, because that\u2019s really what she was doing, she\u2019d lost the whole thing. You don\u2019t need to treat children like that to get them to do things. And so I thought it\u2019s fine to have Mrs Wilberton in so long as I have Mr Pickering as being rather nice.<\/p>\n

Yes, and Clarice isn\u2019t completely virtuous in all of this. <\/strong><\/p>\n

No she\u2019s not!<\/p>\n

She falls off her chair on purpose\u2026!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I know! I want to show, I wanted them all to be rather rounded characters. So in the next novel I\u2019m introducing one of the teachers that you think is marvellous.<\/p>\n

So there is another Clarice Bean novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes.<\/p>\n

More picture books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, we\u2019re just sort of discussing that, because I was going to write another picture book, while I was in New York, which would be set in New York, and then I got really into doing the novel. But I would like to write a series of Clarice picture books which are set abroad, you\u2019ve got that kind of feeling of coming back a little bit more to the feeling of the first one, where maybe there are less plot points, but we were just talking last night about doing one in Australia, because actually Australia is a fascinating country\u2026<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been here before.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019ve been here before, but it\u2019s sort of when \u2014 I don\u2019t know if this is a British thing or a European thing, or what, but the distance, when we were little, thinking of Australia, it\u2019s one of those places that seems so unimaginable, would you ever go there? And you\u2019ve got wombats and possums and kangaroos and things that we just don\u2019t have, and so it\u2019s fairly amazing on that level.<\/p>\n

The books have a slightly international flavour anyway. I wasn\u2019t sure when I first read it whether you were English or not. The imprint didn\u2019t necessarily mean that you were, it might just have been an English edition, and then when I read \u201cMy Uncle is a Hunkle\u201d I got completely thrown, \u201cIs she American? I thought she was English\u2026\u201d so there is a bit of an international flavour anyway. I was thinking as you were talking earlier when you were talking about voice\u2026 I interviewed David Almond earlier this year, and I\u2019d read his books, and my brother-in-law comes from Newcastle as well, but when David read his books in his northern accent, it had a whole different feel to them. That interested me, to have read them and had one relationship with them, and then to hear them in his regional accent and to get a whole other feel to the characters and the setting and the book. It\u2019s just an observation. Do you see Clarice as being from a particular place? Or any of the characters, in fact?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a way I do. When I started writing I wasn\u2019t quite sure where she would come from, and my first instinct was to have her come from Shropshire, which is where I come from, but it didn\u2019t seem to fit with everything that she did, and I was living in London, in north London, in a fairly scruffy-meets-middle class area of London, where it still had that mix of the different types of people which was one of the things I really liked about it. Was living in this house and it kind of backed on, so you could see all these other gardens and houses and things, you heard lots of funny things going on around you. So Robert Granger, her neighbour, is really based on this boy that was my neighbour and I heard him every day calling over the wall to this girl next door and trying to get here to notice him and engage in his very boring conversation. He was one of those very loud children, they can\u2019t talk in any other volume than top volume. It was just funny, and so then I started to picture how I was living in North London, and it was helpful, I sort of needed to know where she lived, and there were certain things I guess I need to picture while I am writing them, otherwise I can\u2019t imagine how does she go to the shop, how does she go to the ?, what can she do on her own? I\u2019ve probably shifted her now, from where she lived to somewhere else which in truth is a lot more chi-chi than it should be, but I can imagine the place and the streets and everything, but maybe if it was ten years ago. That\u2019s the kind of demographic you\u2019d have, it would be a much more Claricey land, not so posh. The problem is in London most of the central London is quite posh now, you have to have quite a lot of money. So I always imagine if people go, well Clarice Bean\u2019s family must be quite posh, they have such a big house, and I said, well, you can have bought your house a long time ago\u2026<\/p>\n

It could be Granddad\u2019s house\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly. And I don\u2019t actually think they necessarily are. They do seem to be middle class, but I don\u2019t think they\u2019re especially well off.<\/p>\n

Well, to me, there\u2019s enough gaps in the information you give, that you can fill that in any way that makes sense to you. There was a bit about their cranky next-door neighbour, I\u2019ve forgotten her name, complaining about the dogs through the walls, and I thought, oh, it\u2019s a semi. So you get a picture in your head, and you leave it open enough for that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly, and her dad, I\u2019ve always felt, we don\u2019t really know what his business is. I don\u2019t think he works in such a posh office. That\u2019s her imagination.<\/p>\n

Well, the world of grown ups and offices is very exotic, isn\u2019t it. Would you go back to illustrate someone else\u2019s writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, if I loved it enough.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen Dan\u2019s Angel<\/em>, I\u2019d like to hunt that down and have a look at it. But that was kind of a different project\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, that was I took on ages ago, really a long time ago I signed that contract and it just didn\u2019t seem as if it would ever happen, and then finally it suddenly did and it was quite interesting to do. The work was in black and white, for other people, I\u2019ve not done colour. And it was quite a problematic book, in that your really, the star of the book really is the actual paintings. So I did it very very flat on computer, and it was a sort of experiment of doing everything on computer, so I\u2019d draw, and then everything would be scanned in, which is completely different to how I\u2019d usually work. It was kind of interesting, seeing if it would work. I was pleased in that the paintings do stand out. I thought, if I work like I work in Clarice, it would get too muddly, there\u2019d be too many things going on. But I would illustrate for somebody else again, but I would have to really feel I got the text, because I don\u2019t think I\u2019m a natural at it. I think that so much of the time I spend writing is also spent thinking about the image and you\u2019re kind of mulling it over all those months that you\u2019re writing, and when you\u2019re handed a text by another author you don\u2019t have all that time. I don\u2019t really necessarily know where they\u2019re coming from, and I think that some people are truly brilliant at taking someone else\u2019s work ad putting a spin on it that maybe the author didn\u2019t realise was there, and in a good way, not missing the point, not being lazy about it, but someone like Quentin Blake or Edward Gorey, they add so much to text and I think that\u2019s a special skill. Don\u2019t know if I have it.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said you want to be more ambitious with your books for Penguin. In what way ambitious?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think what would be really interesting for me, because it was a bit of a risk to take on a third publisher, and my agent and I thought about it very hard, but I loved working with Francesca Dow so much on these Clarice books\u2026<\/p>\n

Was she at Orchard?<\/strong><\/p>\n

She was the one who signed me up for Clarice and she moved to Puffin coming up for two years ago. It seemed awful not to work with Francesca again, we did seem to get on so well. So what I decided was, because I\u2019ve got the Clarice and the Charlie and Lola\u2019s and the odd one like That Pesky Rat<\/em>, that all seem to have a very strong house style, I feel, so if I continue doing them for Orchard. Then at Hodder I was doing, in a way when I look at them, I\u2019m just about to start another one, and they\u2019re all kind of boy characters so far, and they\u2019re narrated, they\u2019re different, to not have that first person voice, they look different to me, anyway, they\u2019re more\u2026 they\u2019re less stylised, I think. So they have a particular kind of thing going on. So with Puffin I felt what would be really nice is to maybe not have a house style at all, so that we can do whatever we like. So there\u2019ll be one book which will be, maybe, one that we\u2019re thinking of, maybe will read much more like a comic book in a way, perhaps. And then I\u2019m doing a book with somebody else, in fact, I\u2019m working with someone else on this next one that will be part illustration and part photography. I\u2019m really looking forward to that, because that\u2019ll a whole different kind of book. So that\u2019s sort of the idea really, and also because perhaps maybe Puffin, because they\u2019re such a big company, they are able to do more with paper engineering, or extra pages that you can use, things that perhaps someone else can\u2019t afford to take those risks.<\/p>\n

Well, of course, you did The Dream Bed<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly, but I know from doing that how hard it is for them because you\u2019re there every single thing is \u2014 and Hodder are a very successful company, but every single thing is however many pence it\u2019s going to cost them, so you\u2019re all thinking about that all the time. It\u2019s not that Puffin have limitless money, but I think that they can, perhaps we can take a bigger risk with something.<\/p>\n

And finally, do you go to schools very much, do you get much direct feedback from kids and what sort of feedback do you get from them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done quite a lot of school visits now, and I get quite a lot of letters from them, which is really interesting. I think particularly with the Clarice novel, that seemed to change things a lot, because although I\u2019ve had letters before, this was from a slightly different age group, where on their own initiative they decided to write and ask questions or tell me what they liked, or what they thought I should do differently. And it\u2019s really nice, too.<\/p>\n

What do they like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They like Ruby Redfort, which is really interesting. I\u2019ve had stacks of letters.<\/p>\n

She is such an interesting creation! I\u2019m reading Trixie Belden, I\u2019m reading, you know, as I\u2019m reading Ruby Redfort, a whole\u2014 reading it in bed last night for the second time, I can\u2019t remember them now, but I kept thinking, of there\u2019s a bit of that and a bit of that and a bit of that\u2026 you do seem to take things from lots of different\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, well, originally she was \u2014 I started writing Ruby Redfort pieces just so I knew what Clarice was reading, not because I was really include so much of it. I was going to have little tiny pieces and then I got really into it. I remembered my sister reading all the Nancy Drew books and how crazy she got about all that, reading series books, and especially because that\u2019s come back as a real fashion, hasn\u2019t it, series books, and so I wanted to be able to talk about that with children as well, without always having to talk about Harry Potter. It\u2019s great that they\u2019ve done that, but there are other books, and I thought it\u2019d be really nice to bring it back to those girl detective type of things.<\/p>\n

Donna Parker, that\u2019s who I was thinking of. Did you ever read the Donna Parker books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

She was a teenager, so she wasn\u2019t a detective, but same sort of feel as all of that, and as you\u2019ve said elsewhere, 60s and 70s kid\u2019s television. I was also interested, visually, do you ever get inspiration from \u2014 you\u2019ve said you\u2019re a collector, and that seems really evident from the fabrics and nicky-nackys \u2014 do you ever get inspired for something in a story by that, or do you start with the story and then go to find your references.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it happens all at once, although no illustrating is done before I\u2019ve written the story, really, but I might make little visual notes. But, yeah, it can be anything you know. I mean, I\u2019ve loved looking out of this window. I\u2019ve always been fascinated by tower blocks and things. All those windows, and they just make interesting patterns. And it\u2019s all \u2014 things like that, going into a shop, there being \u2014 I\u2019ve always been interested in furniture and fabrics and things, so you can just see something that you think well, that makes such a visual thing, and it maybe clicks, or the idea for a particular character who would live with those kind of things. It\u2019s funny, but yeah \u2014 or going into a restaurant that you think, it gives that amazing feeling when you walk into a particular place and you think, oh, I\u2019d like to live in this kind of world all the time, so you just work that into a story, so it gives you that good feeling about something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sydney, October 2003 Lauren Child was in Australia for a publicity tour and the bi-annual Children’s Book Council of Australia conference. I interviewed her in her hotel room overlooking Sydney’s Botanical Gardens. The interview was published in Good Reading Magazine … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":7,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-103","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1225,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103\/revisions\/1225"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/misrule.com.au\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}