The Birdman, Andersen Press,£9.99. Publication date: October 2000
The Birdman
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The Birdman, Andersen Press,£9.99. Publication date: October 2000 |
Ruth Brown has been on at me ever since I was first published to do a story. "You do the story and I'll do the pictures," she said. I tried and failed and tried and failed - it was perfectly impossible. I had no idea what on earth made a story good to be turned onto a picture book.
The Birdman was a story that I had done for my own children when they were living in Germany and I was living over here. After a gap of several years, in which I'd given up ever being able to do a picture book story, Ruth asked again. This this time I sent her a selection of the stories I'd done for Ollie and Pearl when they were away from me. Out of them, Ruth picked this. So at last I've done a picture book story, but I still have no idea what it is that makes this one work, and all the others not.
It's a strange story about desire, concience and greed. As usual, the ending isn't straightforward. The Birdman himself is a pagan kind of figure, who can appear good in some lights and evil in others. You might be misled into thinking you know which side he's really on, but I think he goes his own way, and if he comes up good or bad, it's all the same to him.
Ruth's pictures are the real treat in this lovely book. As soon as she read the story she started thinking about a carnival she'd seen in Italy, and that provides the background for the rich, beautiful pictures she's done, which put the story in a light I'd never thought of myself.
In my original story, there were a number of features that Ruth has taken out of the text and into the pictures. For instance, the Birdman at first had little horns on his head, and when he took his cap off to jarvis early on, he was showing him those horns. You can still see an echo of them in his hair in the picture where Jarvis is holding out his money. Later on, when he shows his wings of in Jarvis's bedroom, he says, "Then I was a devil, but tonight I am an angel."
It was facinating watching how an illustrator goes about converting a storyy - I'd love to do another one. Watch this space!