Tag Archives: children’s books

Political Correctness or Wokeness in Children’s Books?

Times and attitudes change.I was brought up a child of empire and was imbued with attitudes and beliefs by parents, family, school, society and friends.

We have come a long way in a very short time. I found theses two little dummy books that I made to experiment with a character that I called clumsy clot – a commonly used epithet when I was growing up.

Clumsy Clot was a name I used and never thought about until my editor explained why publishers would not be likely to leap at the chance of using the character. Was it censorship, my first brush with political correctness or an awakening to a more empathic view of the use of language?

Getting Ready for the Moon Landing Celebrations

3 Replies

It is almost 50 years since the moon landings. In the weeks leading up to it, I will be having my own little celebration, tidying up Ricky Rocket, my early reader series set in the year 3,000.

Ricky and his family encounter most of the problems that kids and families do today, but in a spacey, hi-tech way! Ricky is a feisty kid who is not afraid to try new things and take control.

Above is my latest video, a read-along-with-Shoo storytelling of the the day Ricky learned to fly without stabilisers. Dad sort of helps, but mostly gets in the way! It’s a story every child who ever learned to ride a bike will empathise with.

The story is available in my three book bind up – Ricky Rocket Rocks the Planet – signed copies with free Ricky Rocket poster are available in my own bookstore.

I’m planning to make Apollo drawing videos over the next few weeks. If there is something you would like me to draw to help your school or homeschool or homework project, let me know and I’ll give you a shout out on the video!

To see more Ricky Rocket videos go to the YouTube Playlist.

You can also get the book from Amazon – follow the links below:

Nearly Finished Artwork for Walker- The boy who can talk to dogs

Leave a Reply


In this video I do a lot of drawing and painting and talking about artwork and making children’s books as I create the final artwork for the image I prepared as a rough in the previous video 

My Editor, Janet, loved the sketches I sent her and now it is a race against time to finish the artwork for the print deadline. I need to paint at least eight images a day, preferably more. It doesn’t help that Mrs Rayner is going away for a week and I have to spend a day in London and we have builders in, who I have to lease with, and cook supper for my aged Mother and go shopping for her and me and my son… but I will get there in time, even if I have to work late in the evenings. It’s part of the “Glamour” of being an illustrator.

Actually, that sounds like the title of a video blog!

It is all painted greyscale as It is going to be a back and white book.The colour I use is:
Neutral Tint Half Pan Watercolour Paint
http://amzn.to/2ymFRJI in the UK
http://amzn.to/2Cbk5f5 in the USA
http://amzn.to/2E5E3t4 in Canada