Boo Loves Books is a gorgeous picture book for readers aged 3-6, written by Kaye Baillie, illustrated by Tracie Grimwood and published by New Frontier Books.

Kaye Baillie has a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing which she began while still an Executive Assistant in a power supply company in Melbourne, Australia. Following her passion for picture books and storytelling, Kaye continued to work and study creative writing to achieve her goal of becoming a full-time children’s author. She is the author of Archie Appleby: The Terrible Case of the Creeps, (Wombat Books, Australia, 2017) and Message In A Sock (MidnightSun Publishing, Australia, 2018). Message In A Sock was shortlisted in the Western Australian Young Readers’ Book Award (2019) and also in the NSW Premier’s History Awards (2019).

Kaye has two educational books published with Cengage Learning and various short stories in children’s literary magazine, The School Magazine, Australia. She has four forthcoming picture books due in 2020/21.

She is an active member and the Assistant Co-ordinator of SCBWI Victoria, Australia and is a member of the Children’s Book Council of Australia. She is represented by Essie White of Storm Literary Agency who she met at the 2019 Sydney SCBWI Conference. She lives in Surf Coast Victoria with her family, two fluffy cats and a silly dog.

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND BOO LOVES BOOKS

As a children’s author, I’m always looking for inspirational true stories to write about. Boo Loves Books is based on a news article about a Book Buddies program where primary school students read to homeless cats at the Animal Rescue League of Berks County, Pennsylvania. What captured my attention was the transformation of a boy who took part in the program.

TRACIE GRIMWOOD ILLUSTRATOR

Tracie Grimwood is a Melbourne based illustrator and artist. She has worked as a professional freelancer since graduating with a Bachelor of Graphic Design from Swinburne University, Melbourne, in 1991. She has produced illustrations for a diverse range of clients around the world from book and magazine publishers to advertising agencies, design studios and government departments.

She is known for work that is emotive and whimsical with a delicate, yet rich sense of colour and texture. In recent years she has developed her personal practice to further explore her connection with the natural world and her interest in anthropology and history, drawing on themes from myths and folk tales. Her painting technique references her illustration background as well as primitive and folk traditions. Her paintings and prints can be found in private collections around Australia, the US and UK.

ABOUT BOO LOVES BOOKS

Phoebe is not a confident reader and avoids it whenever she can. When her teacher, Miss Spinelli, organises a trip to the local animal rescue shelter, Phoebe is asked to read aloud to a dog, Big Boo. As if reading wasn’t hard enough already! After a scary start for Phoebe and the dog, she not only learns empathy but gains confidence and finds joy in her reading as well.

Download teacher’s notes and activities from New Frontier’s Website. http://d.site-cdn.net/916339b02a/a13ed7/boo-loves-books-teaching-notes.pdf

HOW KAYE WROTE THIS BOOK

1. My writing is always best when I write about something I care about. If I don’t enjoy spending time with my characters, then I know it’s not going to work.
2. Most of my writing is inspired by true events or people. I enjoy doing the research.
3. The story’s themes are varied and universal: anxiety, feeling left out, kindness, empathy, animals, books, reading, pet therapy, doing your best, sharing.
4. I like that this story not only has important themes but is humorous as well.
5. The illustrations are so attractive and relatable and provide another level to the story.

HOW TRACIE ILLUSTRATED IT

1.  I developed the main characters first.  The text gave me clues about each character’s personality so I tried to translate that into their appearance, their gestures and expressions, and even their hairstyles.  I then worked the skecthes up as colour samples.  This helped define the style for the rest of the book.

2.  I mapped out the whole book in thumbnail form to make sure the flow of the illustrations suited the narrative.

3.  I then focussed on the interactions between the characters.  It’s important to show the emotions of the characters and their relationships with each other.   Picture books don’t have a lot of text so the illustrations need to show what the text doesn’t tell.

4.  I then drew all of the rough sketches to scale, making sure space was left for the text.  You have to get this part right so that the characters are consistent on every page.  You can use tricks such as relative proportions where, for eg. a character might be three or four heads high.

5.  Then I painted all of the final illustrations in colour, again focussing on consistency.  This is one of the big challenges of illustrating picture books.  You have to be able to reproduce the characters doing all sorts of things at differnt sizes and from different angles.  It also helps to make colour swatches and to use the same base colours on your palette from which to mix your colours all the way through the book.

BOO LOVES BOOKS BOOK TRAILER

WHERE TO FIND KAYE ONLINE

Twitter Kaye Baillie

Website Kaye Baillie

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kaye.baillie.5

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bailliekaye/?hl=en

Boo Loves Books will be available in all good bookshops including Torquay Books, Great Escape Books, Pictures and Pages, Readings and Dymocks. It is also available on Booktopia, Boomerang Books, Amazon.

Congratulations Kaye and Tracie on your beautiful new book!