Why this may be the best book I’ve ever made

There are lots of things that I am hoping to achieve when I devise and write a book for babies and toddlers. It needs to have an appealing subject, a catchy text, an engaging novelty that's easy to use and genuinely piques a child’s interest. It should be surprising, adorable, stylish and slightly quirky but also hugely commercial. It must have a cover that catches your eye whether you’re passing it on a bookstore’s shelf or browsing on a website.  It needs a ‘Ronseal’ title, ie. it should ‘do exactly what it says on the tin’. And it needs artwork that appeals to the adult reader as much as the child one. 


This is a fairly complex matrix of criteria, some of which pull in completely opposite directions to the other! Very few books fulfil them all, but somehow, Peekaboo Lion has managed to, I think. It’s partly to do with its zoo theme (always a favourite with little ones) and a lot to do with Ingela’s enchanting artwork, which manages to be both warm and edgy. It’s also because, having already completed ten titles in this series, Zoe Gregory and Magenta Fox (the brilliant designers I have the privilege of working with) and I now have a pretty good idea of what delivers the most visual impact. And I think this title does deliver particularly well.


The Peekaboo series was the fastest-growing preschool series in the UK in 2021, and has won and been shortlisted for several awards, including Illustrated Book of the Year at the British Book Awards last year, so the odds for Peekaboo Lion look good. 

You never know: perhaps I’ll be proved wrong. But for my money, this is a book that I would have enjoyed reading to my kids, and they would have had fun reading. And, for that reason, I’m being uncharacteristically shouty about it!

I hope you’ll take a look at it. There’s a video of it on my Instagram page and it’s published on a particularly auspicious date, 4 May. So… MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU, PEEKABOO LION! 😊

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