Joyce Dunbar has written over 70 children’s books, including Shoe Baby, Tell Me Something Happy Before I go to Sleep and Moonbird.
When Joyce sent Booktrust a text she had written in praise of picture books, we turned it into the Love a Picture Book leaflet, which celebrates picture books and their transformative powers and aims to inspire parents and carers to read them with their children.
To tie in with the publication of Love a Picture Book, we asked Joyce some questions about why she thinks picture books are so important and what prompted her to come up with the manifesto in the first place.
What inspired you to write ‘Love a Picture Book’?
Frustration! Over the past few years, picture books have become greatly undervalued and underused. I thought I should just spell it out in very simple terms. It came to me in a fit of indignation while I was sitting on a boat on the Norfolk Broads.
Which picture books would you recommend for sharing; are there any favourites that you shared with your children?
So many: (Maurice) Sendak is an all time favourite with In the Night Kitchen. Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Jill Murphy's Peace at Last. Anything by Arnold Lobel and Alexis Deacon's Beegu.
Of the many picture books you have written, which is your favourite?
There is something very special about doing a book with my daughter, so I love Shoe Baby. Also, The Monster who ate Darkness and Oddly, because Jimmy Liao and Patrick Benson are tip-top illustrators.
My most defining work, I think, is the 26 stories about Mouse and Mole, alas, out of print, despite the best endorsement any children's writer could wish for - voices by Alan Bennett, Richard Briers and Imelda Staunton for the animation series.
You collaborated with your daughter Polly Dunbar on Shoe Baby, how did you find working together and do you have any plans to work together again?
I had to be very careful. I hardly saw it through all the stages because I did not want to add to any pressure Polly might have felt. I also get very wedded to early sketches and that might have held her back. She has a great art editor at Walker Books. When I saw the finished book, I was overjoyed.
I have another story for Walker signed up with Polly - but have to take my turn in the queue.
What are you working on at the moment?
I have three ideas beginning to form. I don't know which one will surface sooner. Picture books are a bit like poems - you have to wait quietly for them to swim into your net. I am also working on a book for adults.
Your picture book Moonbird is about a deaf prince and you were involved in Scope’s In the Picture Campaign, which promoted the inclusion of disabled characters in picture books, can you tell us about your work in this area and why you feel it is important?
For deaf children, who rely on the visual, there are hardly any picture books with imaginative appeal. Disability is just not commercial on its own - so you have to widen your scope to include all kinds of readers. I wrote six stories in six years that didn't work.
Meeting Jane Ray was the real catalyst because once I knew she would be willing to illustrate Moonbird, I also knew that it had to be a fairy tale. This has proved very successful because it is cross cultural and now that inclusion is so much more on the agenda, it has been performed in Singapore, France, and Thailand, and is being taken up by mainstream schools.
This is exactly what I hoped to achieve - because what the deaf need most is to be heard.
While so many picture books are about unconditional love, we continue to exclude the disabled child. They just want to be there, visible, In The Picture. Scope's campaign did much to improve things - but there is still a long way to go.
