A Friend for Mr. Granville
>> Wednesday, January 02, 2008
This is the latest book I've illustrated, called A Friend for Mr. Granville by Gillian Richardson, published by Scholastic Canada. My copy from the publisher arrived amidst all the busyness of December and I've been showing it to friends but am just getting around to posting it here. I'm quite proud of this book, I really loved the story and I enjoyed working on the illustrations. There were 24 greyscale illustrations to do for the inside as well as the colour cover.
This book was first published in 1997. My edition is a levelled reader (called Moving up with Literacy Place) to be sold to schools. This means you can't buy this edition in a bookstore, which is something I still aspire to.
Here are some more of the illustrations:
The story is about a boy who visits a senior's home with his class. He notices one man who is always sitting looking out the window on his own and only lights up one day when he sees a family playing with a dog outside. The boy decides to try to arrange for this man to have a dog of his own. Of course it doesn't happen easily, the boy and his friends do extra chores to try to earn the money for the dog, only to find out that the senior's home won't take him!
I tried to make the dog the kids chose look as lovable as possible. Who wouldn't want this dog??
And here's a detail of the cover. 
For me, finally seeing printed copies of books I've illustrated is one of the best parts of being an illustrator. My other thrill is getting new projects to work on and knowing I'll be busy. I just found out this week that I have another project coming my way from one of my favourite clients which made me feel cheerful about the new year (although very busy because I'm still working on another book while we're trying to assemble our IKEA kitchen!). Starting out as a freelance illustrator a couple of years ago turned out to be my most difficult "new job" experience ever, but definitely the most rewarding.
Thanks for reading!
