The April Bulletin
A little catch up
Happy April everyone! I’m swimming (ok drowning) in a world of deadlines this month, but I didn’t want that to stop me from checking in and sharing a few bits of April news. So in the interest of ‘it’s Monday morning and I have loads to get done today’, let’s get going!
The Mindful Magician and the Trip to Feelings Town
First up, I have a real life copy of a book I worked on that published last week! The Book is called The Mindful Magician and the Trip to Feelings Town, written by Lauren Brukner published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. It is full of different self-regulation strategies for dealing with strong emotions and overwhelming sensory experiences, and how to understand interoceptive senses.
It was a big project to work on, as it has more pages than an average sized picture book, and many of the spreads contain busy crowd scenes to show to kinds of environments children might feel overwhelmed in. That meant lots of interesting characters to draw, which I love, and was great to push me to draw lots of different backgrounds too.
It felt really great to work on a project that can really help children with practical tips of regulating their emotions. If you get a copy I really hope you enjoy it. It is available to buy here.
London Book Fair
I attended London Book Fair on Wednesday 19th April. After my Bologna trip getting cut short due to illness, I felt like it would be a good idea to attend the fair in London as I live quite near. Once again, I had no expectations. I knew there were some talks that I really wanted to attend, the ‘In Conversation with Dapo Adeola’, most specifically, and also some friends I wanted to catch up with, but that was it. First impressions were that the children’s section of the fair was much, much smaller than Bologna, as Bologna is exclusively children’s books, and very, very big. This meant it felt like there were fewer illustrators there, and the children’s area felt quieter and calmer in general. It was much easier to chat to publishers and everyone I chatted to was extremely friendly and happy to talk with us.
If you are in easy access to London, I would definitely recommend going in the future. Personally I just love an excuse to meet up in real life and surround myself with people that all love children’s books and want to keep making beautiful books for kids. It felt particularly good to hear a panel of art directors scoff at the very thought of knowingly using A.I. art in their books. Woohoo! Our jobs are safe for a little while longer, I think.
The Box Rocket
And finally, I was so happy to go and visit the brilliant space-themed, immersive exhibition created with Dapo Adeola and Tọlá Okogwu at the Discover Story Centre in Stratford this weekend.
I attended the centre with my husband and two kids, who are 7 and 4. They both absolutely LOVED it. The main area is themed around books that Dapo has illustrated, and of course we are massive fans and know the books very well, so it was a real delight to see the characters brought to life in the experience. The rest of the centre is also available to explore so its a brilliant afternoon activity if you are reasonably local to East London.
You can see a reel of our highlights from the trip here. Thanks for reading, have a great rest of the month and remember, just keep swimming!