Sometimes the idea for a story will spring into my mind fully-formed. But a lot of the time, I get an idea that doesn't work the way I think it should and I have to put it to one side and come back to it later. The story for "Bringing Down the Moon" was like this.
The first idea I came up with was for a story called "A Tower to the Moon" which was about a man who tries to reach the moon by building an enormous rickety tower. The tower gets taller and taller until it eventually topples over. But I wasn't happy with this story, the man's behaviour didn't feel right to me - why did he suddenly decide to do this, and why didn't he know that the moon is too far away.
I stuck the story in my "In Progress" folder and kept coming back to it every few months, but got no further with it until I hit upon the idea of making the main character a mole. A mole lives underground and might never have come across the moon before. And moles are short-sighted, so they might have difficulty judging distance. Then I remembered a picture of a mole that David Parkins had drawn as an incidental character for "Tick -Tock" - one of my favourite picture books. When I looked at this mole (who is determinedly riding a bicycle), my Mole's character and the rest of the story began to fall into place.
I decided that a tower was a bit too sophisticated for a mole, so he would build a ladder instead. I also thought that he would try a more straightforward approach first. So, to start with, I had him jumping up, poking and throwing things at the moon.
Next, I introduced some other characters for Mole to interact with. I liked the idea of these characters being woken-up, one by one, as Mole reached higher and higher. So I chose a rabbit that slept below ground, a hedgehog that slept on the ground and a squirrel that slept high up in a tree.
I often discuss story ideas with my son, Max. When I first told him this story (he was two years old at the time) I kept stopping and asking him what he thought Mole might do next. When I got to the bit just before Mole was going to build the ladder, I asked Max what he thought Mole would do - and Max suggested that he should climb a tree. This struck me as a much stronger and straightforward solution, so I decided to use it in the story. This is why the book is dedicated "To Max, for the use of his tree."
Walker Books bought the story and Vanessa Clarke, my editor there, set about turning it into a book. Finding the right illustrator was important. The story takes place at night, so a subtle use of light and colour was needed to bring the dark woodland world to life. Vanessa showed me some beautifully-toned illustrations that Vanessa Cabban had just done for another book and we quickly settled on her.
Like all good illustrators, Vanessa Cabban has enriched and extended the story. One of my favourite examples of this is her final end-paper illustration, which shows Mole staying up to admire the moon, long after his friends have gone back to bed.
The Dutch edition of "Bringing Down the Moon", entitled "Ik Wil De Maan", was awarded the Kiekeboekprijs for 2003.
The Kiekeboekprijs is a book prize set up by an association of Dutch libraries and is awarded annually to what they consider to be the best Pre-school Book published in the Netherlands.
Van Goor, the book's Dutch publisher, was generous enough to invite Vanessa Cabban and myself over to the Netherlands to pick up the award in September 2003. This is the first time that Vanessa and I had met or even spoken to each other*, and I'm pleased to say that we got along very well. The picture opposite was taken of us shortly after the ceremony. You can find more pictures at the Kiekeboekprijs web site.
After the ceremony we saw a special performance of "Molletje an de maan" ("Mole and the Moon"), a lovely adaptation of the book produced by the Marionettentheater De Flierefluiter puppet theatre company.
*Our Dutch publishers were amazed that Vanessa and I had never met and I suspect that this would come as a surprise to many people. However most UK picture books are produced without the author and illustrator ever communicating directly with each other.
Sometimes the idea for a story will spring into my mind fully-formed. But a lot of the time, I get an idea that doesn't work the way I think it should and I have to put it to one side and come back to it later. The story for "Bringing Down the Moon" was like this.
